SAYLES  BISHOP  D.  D. 


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ZTbe  Doctrines  of  (Brace : 

ant>  *inbrei>  Ebemes 


BY   THE   REV. 


GEORGE   SAYLES   BISHOP,  D.  D. 


Pastor  Emeritus  of  the  First  Reformed  Church  of   Oraage,    N.  J., 

Vedder  Lecturer  for   1885  aid 

President  of  the  General  Syaod  ia  1899 


Sutus  Vtclutore  pontes 


New  York 
GOSPEL  PUBLISHING  HOUSE 

64  West  Twenty-Second  St. 
1910 


Copyright,  May,  1910,  by 
The  Gospel  Publishing  House, 


To  the  Members 

OF  THE 

Jfftrfit  Rtftxvmtb  (Etjurrlj, 

ORANGE,  NEW  JERSEY. 

Dearly  Beloved : 

Permit  me,  to  offer  you  again  these 
Sermons  delivered  in  your  hearing ;  with 
devoutest  thanksgivings  to  Almighty  God 
for  the  priceless  Gospel  they  contain ; 
and  with  most  tender  and  grateful  ac- 
knowledgement of  the  helpfulness  and 
sympathy  of  her,  without  whose  self- 
devotedness  I  could  not  have  remained 
for  more  than  thirty  years  your  Pastor. 


CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Preface    3 

1  The  Ultimate  Appeal 7 

2  The  Testimony  of  the  Scripture  to  Itself 19 

3  Inspiration  of  the  Hebrew  Vowel- Points 43 

4  The   Principles  of  Revision 60 

5  Relative  Value  of  the  Old  Testament 88 

6  Cosmogony  in  Genesis   joi 

7  Jonah — the  Keystone  of  the  Testaments 119 

8  Difficulties  in  the  Bible 131 

9  The  Bondage  of  the  Will 144 

10  The   Doctrine  of   Grace 153 

11  The  Doctrine  of  Election   True 167 

12  A  Popular  Talk  on  Election 179 

13  The  Justice  of  God  in  the  Permission  of  Sin 192 

14  Reprobation     206 

15  What  God  Cannot   Do 223 

16  The  Atonement   235 

17  Imputation,  Adam   and  Christ 249 

18  Substitution,  or  Business  Principles  in  Atonement 260 

19  Grace   and  Works 272 

20  The  Woman  of  Samaria  or  Effectual  Calling 283 

21  The  New  Birth  a  Mystery 295 

22  Kept  from   Falling 306 

23  Will  Believers  Come  Into  the  Judgment 319 

24  Watch— The   Second   Advent 332 

25  The  Sweep  of  Time —  , 346 


CONTENTS. 

Page 

26  Why  Did  God  Create  ? 375 

27  Christian  Science  389 

28  Enthusiasm,  or  Paul  Beside  Himself 402 

29  Are  There  Few  That  be  Saved? 414 

30  A  Plea  for  Revival 425 

31  Shut  Up  to  Faith 438 

32  Faith  Victorious  Over  Death  Written  on  the  Promise.  .  449 

33  Nicea:  The  Story  of  Arius,  Another  Higher  Criticism 

Man    460 

34  James  Arminius;  or  False  to  His  Trust 474 

35  The  Creed  Principle  in  Religion 478 

36  The  Shadow   Side  of  Solomon 498 


PREFACE. 

It  is  by  many  assumed  and  indeed  most  confidently 
asserted  that  the  Doctrines  of  Grace ;  as  preached  by 
Augustine,  Anselm,  Calvin  and  the  great  Reformers — have 
had  their  day — are  superseded  by  the  breadth  of  modern 
thought — are  held,  in  their  original  integrity,  by  no  one 
now ;  nor  can  they  now  be  put,  as  they  were  put  four  hun- 
dred years  ago,  with  hope  of  conviction  or  chance  of  suc- 
cess. 

It  is  in  honest  and  earnest  dissent  from  such  an  opinion — 
an  opinion  sufficiently  confuted  by  the  marvelous  power  and 
success  of  men  like  Charles  H.  Spurgeon,  Caesar  Malan, 
Robert  Murray  McCheyne  and  the  great  leaders  of  the 
Scottish  Free  Church  Disruption — that  the  following  dis- 
courses are  republished,  as  they  and  others  have  been 
delivered  during  a  ministry  of  more  than  forty  years,  to 
the  edification  of  thousands  and  the  conversion  of  scores 
and  hundreds  of  souls. 

There  are  but  two  religions  on  earth.  One  based  upon 
the  postulate  of  Free  Will ;  the  other  upon  that  of  Free 
Grace.  The  two  mutually  annihilate  and  replace  one  an- 
other. For,  if  a  man  is  saved  in  any  way,  either  in  whole 
or  in  part,  by  the  exercise  of  his  own  will,  he  is  not  saved 
only  by  God's  will ;  and  if  he  is  saved  only  by  God's  will — 
i.  e.,  of  pure  grace,  he  is  not  saved  by  his  own.  Divine 
Election,  therefore,  underlies  religion  as  it  underlies  Revela- 
tion. "It  is,"  says  Toplady,  "the  golden  thread  which  runs 
through  the  whole  Christian  System.  For,  what  Cicero  as- 
serts of  human  learning — when  he  says;  Omnes  artes  quae 
ad  humanitatem  pertinent,  habent  quoddam  commune 
vinculum,  et  quasi  cognatione  quadam  inter  se  continentur. 
The  whole  circle  of  the  arts  has  a  kind  of  mutual  bond  and 
connection,  and  by  a  certain  reciprocal  relationship  are  they 
held  and  interwoven  together — can  be  more  exactly  as- 
serted of  Divine  Election.  It  is  the  one  bond  which  unites 
and  keeps  together  the  entire  Christian  System ;  without 
which,  it  were  a  system  of  sand  ever  falling  to  fragments." 

If  our  race  possesses  a  free  will  to  do  that  which  is  good, 
then  faith  is  an  act  of  my  own  and  from  me,  and  I  may 


4  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

relinquish  or  lose  it.  There  is  thus  no  certain  salvation. 
If,  on  the  other  hand;  Man  fallen  can  do  nothing  but  fall 
and  cannot  will  upward ;  then,  God  must  interpose  to  give 
him  that  will  in  the  counter-direction.  But,  then,  in  that 
case,  he  is  saved  by  God's  will  and  not  by  his  own.  And 
that  is  Election. 

In  other  words :  God  must  begin.  His  must  be  the  first 
impulse  and  movement.  What  are  all  the  after  influences 
of  God,  no  matter  how  potent,  if  it  remains  with  the  man 
to  put  himself,  or  not,  under  those  influences?  Does  not 
the  man,  and  not  God,  in  that  case,  decide  his  salvation? 
Is  he  not,  in  fact  his  own  Saviour?  If  man  begins,  con- 
tradicting St.  Paul,  he  "makes  himself  to  differ"  and  is,  in 
fact  the  author  of  the  "new  creature.''  In  other  words,  he 
becomes  his  own  God  and  his  Free  Will  is  set  up  like  Dagon 
over  against  the  Ark  and  is,  henceforth  his  Idol.  For  to 
be  the  author  of  the  new  creation  is  a  greater  thing 
than  to  be  Author  of  the  old.  There  is  therefore  no 
anknupfungspunkt — no  point  of  contact  between  free  will 
and  free  grace.  They  are  diametrical  opposites.  The 
Scripture  says  that  men  are  dead  in  sin.  Can  a  dead  man 
will  anything?  Can  a  corpse  decide  its  own  destiny?  In 
one  way,  it  can.  It  can  work  out  its  own  dissolution.  The 
other  way,  it  cannot.  It  can  destroy  but  not  save  itself :  it 
cannot  give  itself  the  vital  spark:  "Salvation  is  of  the 
Lord."  The  religion  of  free  grace  therefore  gives  the  lie 
to  that  of  free  will.  The  only  freedom  possible  to  fallen 
man  is  freedom  to  sin  and  freedom  from  holiness. 

"But  why  insist  on  a  point  which  is,  after  all,  an  abstrac- 
tion?" Simply  because  it  is  not  an  abstraction;  for  the 
man  who  trusts  his  free  will  is  a  lost  man  whatever  may 
be  his  attainments  in  virtue.  His  Pharisaism :  his  contend- 
ing the  point  of  precedence  with  God:  his  obstinate  holding 
to  his  own  ability,  will  damn  him.  God  is  determined  to 
save  by  free  grace;  the  man  is  determined  to  save  himself 
by  free  will.  He  is  trying  to  stem  Niagara  by  swimming. 
Without  rescue  from  outside  he  will  be  swept  down. 

This  is  the  great  controversy  which  is  abroad  in  the  world 
and  which  decides  destiny,  as  it  divides  mankind.  Does 
God  save  me,  or  do  I,  by  the  use  of  grace  common  to  all, 
save  myself?    Does  God  have  all  the  glory — the  undivided 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  5 

glory;  does  He  by  a  Sovereign  Election  and  choice  make 
me,  from  unwilling,  willing?  Or  do  I  elect  my  own  self  and 
initiate  salvation,  and  will  because  I  have  power?  And 
do  I  still  contend  it  that  men  can  come  to  Christ 
without  the  "drawing  of  the  Father:"  that  from  unwilling 
they  can  make  themselves  willing  without  any  "day  of 
God's  power :"  that  it  is  of  him  that  willeth  and  of  him 
that  runneth  whether  or  not  God  sheweth  mercy,  and  that 
the  carnal  mind  is  subject  to  the  law  of  God  and  indeed  can 
be,  so  then  they  that  are  in  the  flesh  can  by  trying  hard, 
please  Him ! 

This  is  the  great  controversy  which  man  has  with  God — 
a  controversy  in  which  man  must  be  put  clown  and  his 
ability  to  will  annihilated  and  he  lie  dead  in  full  surrender 
at  the  footstool  of  a  Sovereignty  which  hath  mercy  on 
whom  it  will  have  mercy ;  or  he  must  continue  to  stand  up 
and  brave  God  and  fight  to  the  last  for  the  power  of  his 
self-reversible  will  and  go  down  to  hell  a  lost  man. 

The  defence  of  the  Doctrines  of  Grace  is  therefore  a 
defence  of  religion.  Should  these  doctrines  cease  to  be 
preached,  religion  would  become  a  shipwreck  and  the 
Church  an  apostasy.  The  reason  of  the  present  ominous 
and  alarming  declension  in  opinions  and  morals — the  reason 
why  the  Church  cannot  get  the  ear  of  the  world  ;  why  she 
has  no  practical  power  to  transform,  is  because  she  has  no 
supernatural  voice — no  "Thus  saith  the  LoydT — no  deep 
and  tremendous  conviction.  Ethics  can  be  preached  without 
the  Holy  Ghost.  So  can  any  system  of  Moral  Reform  what- 
soever; but  Regeneration — the  doctrine  which  lays  man 
stark  helpless  before  God — shut  up  to  a  faith  which  is  the 
gift  of  mere  Sovereign  distinguishing  grace — is  a  doctrine 
which  calls  for  the  Spirit  of  God  who  alone  can  breathe 
true  conviction ;  who  alone  can  quicken  the  dead  and  say  to 
countless  dry  bones  which  lie  bleaching  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Sepulchre — "Live!"  in  the  cyclone  and  sweep  of  a  mighty 
revival.  As  well  preach  to  the  mummies  of  Egypt  as  preach 
to  unconverted  souls  without  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Sovereignty  of  God  in  Salvation !  This  is  the 
npcSrov  SsjueXiov  the  Ground  and  Base  of  the  Gospel, 
How  shall  we  lift  the  masses  if  this  fulcrum  be  removed? 
How  shall  the  doctrine,  either,  prove  its  potency  without  that 


6  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

all  prevailing  prayer  which  "thunders  in  the  ears  of  God 
and  brings  down  copious  blessings  from  on  high?" 

The  return  to  Calvinism  is  a  return  to  first  principles  and 
to  "first  love."  It  is  the  slinging  again  of  the  five  smooth 
stones  from  the  brook  which  brings  down  proud  Goliath, 
the  mighty  self-inflated  giant  of  free  thought,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  weak-kneed  armies  of  Israel.  It  is  the  multi- 
plication, by  the  power  of  God's  Spirit  of  five  poor  barley 
loaves  which  means  the  feeding  again  and  again  of  hungry 
five  thousands.  It  is  the  echo  of  that  trumpet  of  the  Holy 
War  whose  no  uncertain  Summons  calls  "the  sacramental 
host  of  God's  elect"  from  lethargy  to  life;  from  victory  to 
victory ;  from  conquering  to  conquer. 

If  the  Lord  shall  deign,  in  any  least  degree  to  own  and 
bless  again  the  paragraphs  which  follow ;  ours  shall  be  the 
mercy,  HIS  ALONE  THE  PRAISE. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 


THE  ULTIMATE  APPEAL. 

Isa.  viii  :20. 

"To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony:  if  they  speak  not  according 
to  this  Word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  light  in  them." 

Religion,  from  re-ligo  "to  bind  back,"  must  have  some- 
thing to  tie  to.  It  must  have  a  foundation,  a  basis,  an  ulti- 
mate appeal.    What  is  that  appeal? 

Some  say,  to  consciousness;  man  finds  God  by  consulting 
himself ;  what  tallies  with  himself  is  Divine.  God  is 
humanity  colossalized.  This  is  the  religion  of  nature.  It 
will  account  for  every  vagary,  from  the  myths  of  Paganism 
to  the  self  delusions  of  Theosophy  and  Christian  Science — 
for  everything  from  Homer  to  Huxley. 

Some  say  the  appeal  is  to  tradition;  to  the  decree  of 
Councils ;  to  the  Fathers ;  to  an  authority  lodged  in  the 
Church  as  a  Divine  corporation  breathed  in,  guided,  made  in- 
fallible by  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  is  the  doctrine 
of  Rome — a  doctrine  which  binds  to  a  system  assumed  to 
be  supernatural,  but  shifting  as  the  decrees  of  councils  have 
shifted;  contradictory  as  the  statements  of  church  fathers 
are  conflicting;  blind  and  confusing;  a  congeries  of  truths 
and  errors ;  of  affirmations  and  denials ;  of  half  lights  and 
evasions,  from  Origen  to  Bellarmime. 

The  third  appeal  is  to  a  Book  in  its  two  Testaments,  from 
cover  to  cover,  Infallible;  without  contradiction,  without 
confusion  and  without  mistake;  in  every  chapter,  verse  and 
letter  inspired,  imperative,  direct,  divine.  The  Bible  is  the 
basis,  measure,  criterion  and  test  of  true  religion.  That 
which  binds  back  to  God  is  the  Word  which  came  from 
God ;  a  Revelation  and  authority  which  speaks  from  heaven 
compelling  the  conscience  and  subjugating  the  will.  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord!"  is  our  apology  and  our  appeal  when,  as 
ministers  of  Christ  and  prophets  bearing  the  credentials  of 
His  high  commission,  we  address  ourselves  to  men.  "To 
the  law  and  to  the  testimony :  if  they  speak  not  according 
to  this  Word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  light  in  them."  The 
Bible  like  the  world  stands  upon  nothing.  It  is  its  own 
self-evidence — its  own  imperial  assertion.    It  is  the  voice  of 


8  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

God  which  waits  for  no  defence;  for  no  endorsement,  but 
which  claims  submission.  To  receive  it  is  salvation — to 
reject  it,  trifle  with  it,  question  it  is  to  make  shipwreck  of 
the  soul. 

The  Bible  is  a  direct  Revelation  from  God — a  voice  speak- 
ing from  heaven.    How  is  that  evident? 

i.  From  its  uniqueness:  the  Bible  differs  on  its  surface 
from  every  other  book. 

It  speaks  a  Trinity  in  the  very  roots  of  its  verbs,  every 
one  of  which  is,  in  the  Hebrew,  composed  of  3  letters— 
tri-literal. 

It  teaches  man's  apostasy  and  restoration  in  the  singular 
reversal  of  its  text.  The  Hebrew  is  written  and  read 
from  right  to  left;  from  God's  right  hand  where  He  doth 
work,  is  man's  departure.  Then  the  Greek  takes  him  up,  a 
prodigal  son  at  his  remotest  distance  from  God  and  brings 
him  back  from  left  to  right — from  death  to  life  again. 

Incarnation    is    in    the    Tetra- 
grammation;  that  is  the  Hebrew    "1 
letters  of  the  word  Jehovah  '  "W   t    1 
written     vertically     from     up     to  '  *y 
down  give  us  the  outlines  of  the      ( 
human    figure — God    made    flesh.  "— *i 
This    is    the    difference    between  j    J 
Elohim,    God    in    creation ;    and  '    ■ 
God  in  covenant  anticipating  in- 
carnation. 

Again:  the  Bible  puts  man's  true  relations  in  the  very 
conjugation  of  the  Hebrew  verb.  In  all  occidental 
languages  the  verb  is  conjugated  from  the  first  person  to  the 
third— "I,"  "Thou,"  "He."  The  Hebrew,  in  reversal  of 
the  human  thought,  is  conjugated  from  the  third  down  and 
back  to  the  first :  beginning  with  God,  then  my  neighbor, 
then  myself  last — "He,"  "Thou,"  "I."  This  is  the  Divine 
order  self  obliterating  and  beautiful. 

Again:  The  Bible  is  divine  in  its  perfect  self-consistency, 
— in  the  comparison  and  harmony  of  spiritual  things  with 
spiritual.  Ponderibus  librata  snis :  everywhere  it  is  equally 
balanced  in  its  teachings  and  its  mighty  words. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  9 

Again:  The  Bible  is  divine  in  its  illimitable  Comprehen- 
siveness. The  Hebrew  language  has  no  present  tense.  The 
present  moment  is  but  a  vanishing  point.  The  Bible  lives 
in  an  Eternal  now.  Infinitely  above  man,  the  Bible  is  let 
down  to  man  who  is  "but  of  yesterday  and  knows  nothing." 

The  Bible  is  divine  in  its  Arithmetic.  Everything  in  the 
universe  is  built  on  numbers.  We  say,  "Figures  will  not 
lie."  Numbers  are  in  the  Bible  and  everywhere  each  bears 
the  same  significance  and  indicates  the  same  relationship. 
Numbers  are  in  the  Bible.  Criticism  is  confronted  by  the 
fact.  Does  criticism  dare  deny  that  God  is  in  the  fact? 
Does  criticism  dare  assert  that  there  is  not,  at  work  in  the 
Scripture,  the  grandest  Mathematician  of  all — God  cipher- 
ing out  the  problem  of  destiny?  Take  some  of  these  num- 
bers. 3,  which  always  stands  for  Trinity  and  trinal  relation. 
4,  which  designates  human  nature  in  its  possibilities  and 
weakness — the  four  corners  of  the  habitable  globe.  5,  re- 
sponsibility to  God  as  seen  in  the  five  senses — the  five 
fingers  of  the  right  hand.  So  Israel  went  up  out  of  Egypt, 
"five  in  a  rank."  So  the  height  of  the  hangings  of  the 
Tabernacle  looking  upward  was  five  cubits.  Take  further: 
6,  always  one  short  of  perfection.  7,  the  Mediator's  num- 
ber 3  and  4  united — God  and  man,  Redemption  complete. 
8,  a  new  octave — resurrection.  10,  a  double  five — ten 
fingers  on  two  hands — ten  commandments,  responsibility  to 
God  and  man.  40,  trial,  probation — forty  years  of  Moses  in 
the  wilderness — forty  days  on  Sinai — forty  days  of  tempta- 
tion for  our  Lord.  These  meanings  are  unchangeable.  Let 
him  who  denies  it,  try  to  change  them  and  make  them  any- 
thing else  if  he  can.  To  do  so  he  must  change  the  6  fingers 
and  6  toes  of  Goliath,  the  6  pieces  of  his  armor,  the  600 
shekels  weight  of  his  spear's  head,  the  6  cubits  of  his  stature 
which  lay  prostrate  under  David's  sling  and  stone.  To 
disprove  the  meaning  of  the  6,  the  critic  must  deny  the  66 
cubits  in  the  height  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  image  and 
the  6  cubits  of  its  breadth  as  it  goes  down  before  the 
smiting  Stone.  To  disprove  the  meaning  of  the  6,  the  critic 
must  go  on  to  deny  666  to  be  the  number  of  that  Anti- 
christ, typed  by  Goliath  and  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  falls 
before  a  greater  David  and  a  greater  unhewn  Stone — 
"Whom  the  Lord  shall  consume  with  the  spirit  of  his  mouth 


io  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

and  destroy  with  the  brightness  of  His  coming/'  Let  the 
critic  stand  in  front  of  the  black-board  which  displays  these 
figures,  and  laugh  at  their  absurbity  if  he  can.  If  he  can- 
not laugh,  let  him  be  silent  and  wonder  and  adore. 

The  Bible  differs  from  every  other  book  in  the  Perpetuity 
of  its  text — that  it  is  written  in  the  only  two  languages 
which — dating  back  of  all  tradition  are  recognized  as  living 
vehicles  of  thought  to-day.  The  Greek  spoken  in  the  streets 
of  modern  Athens  is  the  same  Greek  to  its  very  accents 
as  is  that  of  Xenophon,  and  of  the  Iliad  which  was  penned 
three  thousand  years  ago.  The  Hebrew  of  the  Talmud  is 
the  Hebrew  of  Genesis.  Marvellous  survival,  and  miracle 
of  God !  The  Egyptian  of  Rameses  has  perished.  The 
Assyrian  spoken  by  Rabshakeh  is  gone  but  the  Greek  spoken 
by  St.  Paul  on  Areopagus  finds  echo  still  beneath  the  Arch 
of  Hadrian  and  the  sacred  languages  in  which  God  wrote, 
like  the  cloven  tongues  of  Pentecost  flash  still  a  living  fire 
while  their  archaic  characters,  unworn  and  undecayed  by 
time,  lie  moveless  and  immutable  at  the  foundation  of  all 
that  can  pretend  to  solid  learning  or  a  liberal  culture.  With- 
out them,  Theological  Seminaries  and  Colleges  as  well,  are 
without  the  guarantee  or  hope  of  either  prosperity  or  in- 
fluence or  permanence. 

The  Bible  is  the  one  Book  in  the  world  which  can  be 
read  only  in  the  light  of  supernatural  illumination.*  In 
this,  it  stands  unique,  exclusive,  singular,  isolate.  Other 
books,  Plato,  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Descartes,  can  be  under- 
stood as  well  by  the  natural  man  as  by  the  spiritual, — but 
no  natural  man  can  know  the  things  of  the  Bible  but  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  who  wrote  the  Bible.  The  natural  man, 
even  the  wisest,  the  most  learned  of  natural  men,  sticks  in 
the  letter.  He  gets  no  further  than  the  text.  The  most  il- 
literate peasant  taught  by  the  Spirit  sees  more  of  God  in 
His  Word  than  does  the  greatest  philosopher,  or  the  pro- 
foundest  technical  theologian  who  is  without  that  teaching. 
The  Bible  is  a  light  which  requires  an  additional  Light. 
"In  Thy  light  shall  we  see  light."  "Open  Thou  mine  eyes 
that  I  may  behold  wondrous  things  out  of  Thy  law." 
"Then  opened  He  their  understanding  that  they  might  un- 

*"No  man  sees  one  iota  in  the  Scripture,"  says  Luther,  "but  he 
that  hath  the  Spirit  of  God." 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  n 

derstand  the  Scriptures."  A  man  may  have  the  Bible  and 
read  it  through  10,000  times  and  the  letter  may  kill  him. 
Unitarians  have  the  Bible  but  they  cannot  see  Christ 
in  it.  "For  what  man  can  know  the  things  of  a  man  if  he 
has  not  a  man's  spirit  in  him?  Even  so,  the  things  of 
God  cannot  any  man  know  if  he  has  not  God's  spirit  in 
him"   (1  Cor.  ii:2).     Regeneration  determines  theology. 

The  Bible  is  unique,  apart  from  every  other  book  in  its 
Self-evidence.  When  the  sun  shines  you  do  not  fly  to  a 
laborious  argument  to  prove  there  is  a  sun ;  or  that  sun- 
light is  irradiation.  The  sun  speaks  for  himself.  He  sim- 
ply says,  "I  am  the  sun."  He  needs  not  to  say  it,  he  shines 
it. 

So  the  Word  of  God.  The  Koran  does  not  on  the  face 
of  it  say,  "I  am  divine !"  It  does  not  glow  with  God  from 
its  pages.  So  neither  does  the  Zenda-Vesta  or  the  Book 
of  Mormon. 

But  the  Bible  shines  tvhat  it  is.  It  asks  no  apology ;  its 
voice  is  its  claim.  We  take  the  ground  that  when  one 
hears  the  Bible  he  knows  by  instinct  that  it  is  the  Word  of 
God — he  recognizes  its  celestial  tone. 

We  take  the  open  ground  that  a  single  stray  leaf  of 
God's  Word  found  by  the  wayside,  by  one  who  never  had 
seen  it  before,  would  convince  him  at  once  that  the  strange 
and  wonderful  words  were  those  of  his  God — were 
Divine. 

The  Scriptures  are  their  own  self-evidence.  We  take  the 
ground  the  sun  requires  no  critic — truth  no  diving-bell. 
When  the  sun  shines,  he  shines  the  sun.  When  God  speaks, 
His  evidence  is  in  the  accents  of  His  words. 

How  did  the  prophets  of  old  know,  when  God  spoke  to 
them  that  it  was  God?  Did  they  subject  the  voice  that 
shook  their  every  bone  and  made  their  flesh  dissolve  upon 
them,  to  a  critical  test?  Did  they  put  God,  so  to  say — as 
some  of  our  moderns  seem  to  have  done — into  a  crucible, 
into  a  chemist's  retort,  in  order  to  certify  that  He  was  God? 
Did  they  find  it  necessary  to  hold  the  handwriting  of  God 
in  front  of  the  blowpipe  of  anxious  philosophical  examina- 
tion in  order  to  bring  out  and  to  make  the  invisible,  visible? 
The  very  suggestion  is  madness.  Inability  to  comprehend 
the  words  of  God  does  not  arise  from  their  obscurity  and 


12  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

our  weakness,  but  from  our  wicked  aversion  to  things  most 
plainly  uttered.  "The  light  shineth  in  darkness  and  the 
darkness  does  not  even  know  that  it  is  light." 

The  Bible  is  a  Divine  Revelation.  It  is  to  be  handled 
with  awe.     It  is  to  be  received  on  the  knees  of  the  soul. 

2.  The  Bible  speaks  with  authority.  It  claims  to  be 
Divine.  It  is  not  man's  utterance.  It  is  everywhere, 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord !"  Twenty  six  times  in  the  27  chap- 
ters of  Leviticus,  the  formula  is  repeated :  "And  the  Lord 
spake  unto  Moses  saying."  Moses  then  was  but  the  record- 
er of  what  the   Lord  said. 

Evolution  says  the  world  came  out  of  a  fire  mist.  Genesis 
tells  us  that  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  an  instant 
creation — that  God  spake  and  it  was  done ;  that  He  com- 
manded and  it  stood  fast.  35  times  the  word  God  appears 
in  the  34  verses  which  complete  the  account  of  creation  and 
end  with  the  Sabbath.  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth;  God  created  great  whales;  God  created  man  in  the 
image  of  God ;  God  created  the  seed  before  it  sprouted  in 
the  earth,  etc.,  etc.  These  35  repetitions — these  35  asser- 
tions of  God  are  35  red  hot  cannon  balls  between  the  eyes 
of  evolution.  Before  them,  like  Goliath,  it  falls  to  the 
ground. 

The  Bible  speaks  with  authority — 

"This  is  the  Judge  that  ends  the  strife, 
Where  wit  and  wisdom  fail." 

The  Bible  is  unique — the  Bible  speaks  with  authority — 
then 

3.  The  Bible  meets  the  soul's  suprcmest  need.  It  does 
this  because  it  deals  with  3  infinites, — infinite  holiness ;  in- 
finite guilt ;  infinite  atonement. 

Infinite  holiness.  God  is  holy — utterly  and  absolutely 
holy.  But,  if  holy,  God  is  just,  for  justice  is  a  part  of  holi- 
ness. But,  if  just  He  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  in- 
iquity. When  I  look  up  to  God  I  see  infinite  holiness — 
whiteness  which  penetrates  my  black  soul  with  horror. 

For  I  am  guilty.  I  feel  it,  and  the  more  I  look  down 
into  -myself,  the  more  do  I  feel  it.  I  find  that  I  am  not 
only  a  sinner,  but  sinful — that  it  is  in  me  to  sin  and  that  the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  13 

tendency  downward  is  a  fact  irreversible ;  depravity  is  a 
pit  that  is  bottomless.  That  is  the  second  infinite — infinite 
guilt. 

Here  then  are  two  infinites  directly  opposed.  Up  there, 
God.  Down  here,  my  soul.  How  can  they  be  reconciled? 
The  never  to  be  stifled  cry  of  the  awakened  spirit  is:  "How 
can  God  be  just  and  justify  the  guilty?" 

The  Bible  and  the  Bible  alone  answers  that  question.  It 
brings  in  the  third  infinite.  One  as  near  to  me  in  my  nature 
as  he  is  to  God  in  the  Divine,  has  come  in  between  us. 
"See  God  our  Shield !"  A  screen  is  interposed  between  the 
infinites,  as  infinite  as  they.  The  question  of  my  aching 
heart,  which  all  the  universe  outside  it,  could  not  answer, 
the  Bible  answers  when  it  whispers,  "He  is  our  Peace." 

But  when  Immanuel's  face  appears, 

My  thoughts  no  comfort  find ; 
The  holy,  just  and  sacred  Three, 

Are  terrors  to  my  mind. 

But  when  Immanuel's  face  appears, 

My  joys,  my  hopes  begin ; 
His  name  forbids  my  slavish  fears, 

His  grace  removes  my  sin, 

4.  As  the  Bible  meets  the  soul's  supremest  need,  so  it  re- 
veals a  method  of  salvation  which  man  could  never  have 
imagined  and  which  shown  to  him,  he  cannot  consent  to 
receive. 

For  the  Bible  teaches  that  we  are  justified  by  another 
man's  merits — in  other  words  that  we  can  have  no  merits 
of  our  own  but  must  consent  to  be  accepted  only  on  the 
ground  of  what  Jesus  the  Son  of  God  has  suffered  and 
done. 

Not  another  book  in  the  world  has  ever  taught  or  sug- 
gested such  a  notion  as  this.  Last  winter,  in  Egypt,  I 
read  a  treatise  written  in  the  time  of  Rameses  II,  by  Ptah- 
Hotep,  one  of  his  Counsellors  of  State.  It  went  to  show 
how  a  man  can  be  right  with  God.  He  must  make  himself 
right.  He  must  be  just,  true,  virtuous,  temperate.  In 
other  words,  the  book  written  by  an  old  Egyptian  4,000 
years  ago  taught  salvation  by  ethics.    That  is  what  Socrates 


14  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

taught,  what  Zoroaster  taught  and  Confucius.  That  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  world  and  even  where  Christ  is  accepted 
the  doctrine  is  still :  "We  must  do  something ;  we  must  do 
our  part ;  we  must  trust  Christ  and  do  the  best  we  can,  then 
God  will  accept  us." 

The  Church  of  Rome  teaches  that  Christ  by  His  suffer- 
ings merited  a  grace  for  us,  by  using  which,  we  may  merit 
and  so  be  accepted  for  what  we  have  done.  This  doctrine 
of  being  saved  either  in  whole  or  in  part  by  our  doings  is 
the  doctrine  of  every  unregenerate  man  whether  so-called 
Christian  or   Pagan. 

The  Bible  shows  itself  Divine  by  showing  a  Diviner  way. 
It  shoves  man  from  the  platform  and  replaces  him  by  a 
Substitute — what  the  law  could  not  do  in  that  it  was  weak 
through  the  flesh,  Christ  has  done  and  done  wholly.  Adam 
lies  dead  and  we  in  him  lie  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins — 
Christ  stands  on  resurrection  ground — and  faith,  a  single, 
simple,  solitary  act  of  faith — by  one  bound  transports  us 
to  His  side. 

Adam  disobeyed  the  law ;  we  disobey  it.  God  insists  that 
we  shall  keep  it  perfectly.  He  cannot  insist  upon  anything 
less.  We  cannot  keep  it  perfectly.  Then  Christ  does  it 
for  us. 

Christ  for  33  years — the  period  of  a  human  lifetime,  was, 
under  the  law,  keeping  the  law  to  make  for  us  a  record. 
He  earned  heaven  for  us  on  the  principle,  "Do  this  and 
live" — Christ  did  and  we  plead  His  merit. 

I  get  heaven  simply  on  the  ground  of  Christ's  perform- 
ances.— His  righteous  life.  His  obedience  reckoned  mine, 
is  my  obedience. 

But — that  righteousness  of  Christ  for  me,  is  based  on 
expiation.  Give  me  a  righteousness,  yet  what  becomes  of 
the  sins  that  I  have  committed?  They  must  be  washed  out 
in  blood  for  "without  shedding  of  blood  is  no  remission." 
That  also  I  find  in  my  Substitute. 

"For  sins  not  His  own 
He  died  to  atone." 

As  the  old  Puritans  put  it,  "Jesus  was  all  His  lifetime 
gathering  and  beating  small  the  golden  threads  with  which 
to  weave  the  seamless  robe  of  an  imputed  righteousness 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  15 

and  in  His  death  He  dipped  that  robe  in  the  vermilion  of 
His  blood." 

The  Bible  doctrine  is  that  Christ  makes  up  all  liabilities, 
for  us,  to  Godvvard.  All,  all  our  righteousnesses  are  but 
filthy  rags  and  He  is  all  our  righteousness. 

"By  Him  all  who  believe  are  justified  from  all  things." 
The  one  act  which  saves  us  is  a  simple  risk  and  venture 
upon  Christ. 

"Upon  a  life  I  did  not  live, 

Upon  a  death  I  did  not  die, 
Another's  death,  Another's  life, 

I  risk  my  soul  eternally." 

The  Bible  proves  itself  to  be  Divine,  because  in  it  wre 
have  God's  thought  higher  than  man's  thought;  His  "way 
abolishing  ours  in  salvation. 

The  Bible  proves  itself  Divine  because  in  it  we  are 
taught  that  we  are  saved  out  and  out,  by  simple  suspense 
on  Another — that,  to  Godward,  Christ  is  all  in  all  and  no 
man  anything  at  all. 

"When  He  from  His  lofty  throne, 

Stooped  to  do  and  die, 
Everything  was  fully  done, 

Hearken  to  His  cry. 

"  'It  is  finished!'  yes  indeed, 
Finished  every  jot, 
Sinner,  this  is  all  you  need 
Tell  me,  is  it  not? 

"Weary  working  plodding  one, 

Wherefore  toil  you  so? 
Cease  your  doing;  all  was  done 

Long,  long  ago. 

"Till  to  Jesus'  work  you  cling, 
By  a  simple  faith, 
Doing  is  a  deadly  thing, 
Doing  ends  in  death. 


16  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"Nothing  either  great  or  small, 

Nothing,  sinner,  no, 
Jesus  did  it,  did  it  all, 

Long,  long  ago. 

"Cast  your  deadly  'doing'  down, 

Down  at  Jesus'  feet; 
Stand  in  Him,  in  Him  alone, 

Gloriously  complete. 

"When  you  know  that  you  are  saved, 

Trusting  in  the  Blood, 
You  will  live  to  Him  who  died, 

Yielded  up  to  God. 

"Gratitude  is  all  our  life, 

Merits  none  have  we, 
Filthy  rags  our  righteousness, 

Christ  alone  our  plea." 


5.  Now  let  us  take'  a  broader  survey  of  the  Scrptures  and 
find  still  further  confirmation  of  the  fact  that  they  are 
divine. 

(1)  Look  at  their  continuity.  "Not  without  Blood."  A 
scarlet  thread  binds  the  Bible  together  from  cover  to  cover. 
The  Blood  begins  to  flow  at  Eden's  gate.  It  grows  in 
mighty  volume  down  the  long  line  of  sacrificial  rites  to  Cal- 
vary. It  gleams  again  in  the  "Lamb  Slain"  whom  John 
beheld  in  the  midst  of  the  throne.  Through  every  rope  of 
the  British  navy  there  is  twisted  a  single  red  cord.  Cut 
any  rope  and  you  will  find  the  cord.  So  through  the  66 
books  of  the  Bible  runs  the  Scarlet  line  of  Atonement. 
Open  any  book  and  you  will  find  a  Bleeding  Saviour.  Rev- 
elation in  its  continuity  and  in  its  parts  is  one  and  the  same. 

(2)  The  Bible  glimpses  its  Divinity  in  unsuspected  hints 
and  singular  coincidences.  Take  for  iexample,  the  5th  chap- 
ter of  Genesis — a  chapter  which  one  might  rashly  call  the 
dryest  of  genealogies.  Yet  there  you  get  that  sublimest 
pilgrimage  and  prophecy  of  Enoch  and  his  wonderful  trans- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  17 

lation,  when  he  walked  and  walked  with  God  until  we  see 
him  walk  azvay  with  God.  More  than  this,  the  chapter  in 
its  very  names  gives  us  a  forecast  of  redemption.  Adam, 
"man  made  in  the  image  of  God" — Seth,  "substituted  by" — 
Enos,  "man  frail  and  sinful" — Cainan,  yes  and  "sorrowing" 
— Mahalalccl,  "the  Blessed  God" — Jared,  "shall  come  down" 
— Enoch,  "teaching" — Methuselah,  "His  death  shall  bring" 
— Lamcch,   "the   despairing" — Noah,   "consolation." 

(3)  Again — the  Scope  and  Final  Teaching  of  the  Book  is 
to  reveal  and  justify  a  Secret  Providence. 

The  teaching  of  the  world's  literature  is  pessimistic — 
Virtue  suffers  and  is  always  struggling  but  at  the  last  is 
defeated, — Circumstances — Fate   overcomes   her.. 

What  can  be  sadder  for  example  than  the  last  interview 
of  Hector  and  Andromache  pictured  by  Homer  at  the 
Scean  Gate  of  Troy? 

This  scene  has  been  eulogized  by  classic  scholars  as  one 
of  the  noblest  ever  painted  in  words — Yet  look  at  it.  Hec- 
tor is  to  go  out  upon  the  field  of  battle — probably  to  die. 
"Oh  Hector,"  sobs  Andromache,  "you  are  my  all — more 
than  father  or  dear  mother  or  brothers  and  sisters  whom 
I  have  lost  in  this  terrible  war.  What  shall  I  do  if  you  fall  ?" 
Hector  replies — "Yes  I  shall  fall  and  you  will  be  carried 
away  captive  and  will  be  a  slave  to  draw  water  in  a  far 
away  land.  I  shall  not  help  you  for  I  shall  be  in  my  tomb." 
"But,  Hector,  what  shall  I  do?"  "You  must  go  home  and 
occupy  yourself  with  household  cares.  These  will  help  to 
distract  you — They  are  your  best  comfort — Meanwhile  we 
are  in  the  hands  of  a  relentless  fate." 

That  is  man's  view  of  life — The  view  of  all  the  Greek 
tragedies,  Euripides,  Sophocles,  Eschylus — It  is  the  view 
of  9  out  of  10  of  all  our  modern  novels — even  though  they 
are  written  under  the  light  of  the  Gospel.  "It  is  of  no  use — 
Cheating  prospers.  The  good  man  goes  to  the  wall — The 
right-minded  girl  succumbs  beneath  too  great  a  temptation. 
Righteousness  may  reign  but  not  in  this  one — in  some  other 
world." 

Now  take  the  Bible  view-point — Evil  may  succeed  for  a 
moment — but  the  devil  is  cast  down — Adam  falls  but  falls 
to  rise  again  to  bliss  immortal — David  flees  as  a  partridge 
to  the  mountains  but  all  the  while  is  on  the  wav  to  the  throne 


18  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

— Messiah  suffers — but  before  Him  is  the  prospect  of  un- 
utterable triumph. 

The  Bible  makes  the  future  of  those  who  trust  in  God 
a  glorious,  shining  way  that  "shineth  more  and  more" — 
"Weeping  may  endure  for  a  night  but  joy  cometh  in  the 
morning." 

"Let   him   who   sows   in   sadness   wait 

Till  the  fair  harvest  come 
He  shall  confess  his  sheaves  are  great 
And  shout  his  harvest  home." 

God  will  wipe  away  all  tears  from  all  eyes — God  will 
bring  light  out  of  darkness — meat  out  of  the  Eater — honey 
from  the  Rock.  "God  will  help  me  if  I  fight  his  battles, 
and  He  will  bring  me  back  crowned  with  honors  to  your 
dear  arms — Christ  will  be  with  you  and  we  are  always 
His !"  This  what  the  Christian  Hector  says  to  his  weeping 
Andromanche. 

A  secret  Providence !  How  beautifully  Calvin  wrote  of  a 
Secret  Providence ! 

Take  Joseph — Had  he  not  been  cast  into  the  pit,  he  would 
not  have  been  sold  into  Egypt — Had  he  not  been  thrown 
into  prison  he  would  never  have  interpreted  the  Butler's 
dream  nor  gone  into  the  presence  of  Pharaoh  nor  have 
made  the  Second  Ruler  in  the  Land  of  Egypt. 

Take  Esther — Had  not  Haman  thrown  the  lot  for  Adar 
12  months  ahead  the  Jews  would  have  been  cut  off  before 
the  King's  posts  could  countermand  the  decree — Had  not 
King  Ahasuerus  had  a  sleepless  night,  Mordecai's  service 
would  never  have  been  recognized  nor  would  he  have  sup- 
planted Haman  in  the  affairs  of  Persia — and  there  would 
have  been  no  Purim  which  the  Jews  observe  to  this  day. 

Secret  Providence — "I  will  bring  the  blind  by  a  way  that 
they  know  not — I  will  make  darkness  light  before  them 
and  crooked  things  straight.  All  things  are  working  to- 
gether for  good  to  them  that  love  God" — Oh  Divine  Book — 
Oh  Peerless  Revelation — "When  I  went  into  the  Sanctu- 
ary then  understood  I,  their  end." 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  19 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  SCRIPTURE  TO 
ITSELF. 

Hos.  viii  :I2. 
''I  have  written  to  him  the  great  things  of  My  Law." 

The  Bible  is  the  very  handwriting  of  God !  Suppose 
I  believe  that.  Suppose,  instead  of  Luke  and  John  and 
Paul  and  Peter.  I  behold  in  overawed  imagination  "God 
grasping  the  pen"  and  setting  down  the  sentences,  the 
words,,  the  jots  and  titles — every  stroke  of  it;  does  not 
that  fix  me  ?  does  not  that  arrest  me  ?  does  not  that  determine, 
shape,  and  mould  me,  as  no  conviction  other,  lesser,  can? 

That  is  the  Anchor  to  which,  by  twisting  a  few  honest 
strands,  I  would  help,  if  I  may.  to  rebind  our  cables. 
When  we  were  resting  quietly  inside  of  Sandy  Hook,  our 
own  ship  and  others  swung  round  with  the  tide,  but 
none  changed  its  place,  for  all  were  well  anchored.  The 
ships  of  sentiment  are  swinging  loose  to-day.  and  with  the 
counter  tide.  That  has  been,  and  it  will  be,  again  and 
again,  so  long  as  human  opinion  is  the  vacillating  and 
uncertain  thing  it  is.  But  we  need  not  fear,  for  the  old 
anchor  holds  as  firm,  as  steady,  as  inflexible  as  ever 
That  anchor — back  of  all  departures,  heresies,  and  fluc- 
tuations— is  the  literal,  direct.  Divine  inspiration,  on  the 
original  parchments,  of  the  Word  of  God. 

We  cannot  consent  to  see  in  the  Bible  the  pens  nor  the 
penmen ;  but,  undistractedly.  the  Master  Intellect,  which 
everywhere  directs  each  thought.  We  must  maintain 
with  Justin  Martyr,  with  Chrysostom.  and  with  Theophilus 
of  Antioch,  the  illustration  of  that  "harp"  on  which 
the  Spirit  breathes,  ''the  strings  of  which  He  touches  to 
evoke  each  vital  tone."  We  must  "adore"  with  Athe- 
nogoras  "the  Being  who  has  harmonized  the  strains,  who 
leads  the  melody,  and  not  the  instrument  on  which  He 
plays.  What  umpire  at  the  Games."  he  cries,  "omits  the 
Minstrel  while  he  crowns  the  lyre?" 


20  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

The  mistake  of  moderns,  and  especially  of  recent  mod- 
erns, has  been  "crowning  the  lyre."  The  whole  question 
of  Inspiration  has,  within  the  last  half  century,  been  made 
to  turn  upon  the  writers.  It  has  been  unhinged  from  those 
stanchions  on  which  St.  Paul  makes  it  turn — the  Writings 
themselves. 

This  misdirection  of  thought  would  seem  to  be  much 
like  that  of  the  boy  who  stands  at  the  end  of  the  tele- 
graph line  and  gets  a  message  from  his  father  ("I  have 
written  to  him  the  great  things  of  My  Law"),  and  who, 
instead  of  taking  the  message  as  direct,  authoritative,  final, 
goes  to  work  to  discuss  the  posts,  the  wires,  electricity,  the 
key-board,  the  touch  of  the  finger,  the  process.  His  business 
is  simply  to  heed  and  obey. 

The  doctrine  of  direct,  dictated,  verbal  Inspiration — 
that  everything  in  the  Bible  was  set  down  by  the  finger 
of  God — has  these  five  things  in  its  favor: 

i.  It  is  the  first,  original,  and  oldest  doctrine. 

2.  It  is  the  siinplest  doctrine. 

3.  It  is  the  nndeviating  doctrine  which  has  proved  the 
bulwark  of  the  Church  of  God.  Defended  in  the  earli- 
est centuries  by  men  like  Athenagoras  and  St.  Augustine 
— defended  still  by  men  like  Wickliffe,  Huss,  and  Luther 
in  the  struggles  which  led  in  the  Reformation — and,  in 
post-Reformation  times,  defended  by  men  like  the  Bux- 
torfs,  John  Owen.  John  Gill,  and  Gaussen — it  has  been 
the  one,  consistent,  inexpugnable,  permanent  doctrine  from 
the  beginning.  Scripture — sunlight  to  the  sun — is  the 
untarnishable  radiance  of  God.     What  it  says,  God  says. 

4.  A  fourth  fact  is  the  logical  impossibility  of  any  other 
counter  position.  "If  we  do  not  take  direct  Inspiration," 
says  Waller,  "what  we  are  to  take  is  not  so  clear."  If  we 
begin  to  admit  inequalities  in  Revelation,  where  shall  we 
stop?  If  we  turn  our  attention  away  from  the  writing  to 
occupy  ourselves  with  the  writer — his  genius,  his  knowledge, 
the  amount  of  assistance  required — who  does  not  see  that 
this  descent  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  the  high  Himalaya 
of  the  Divine  to  the  low,  marshy  ground  of  the  creatural 
human,  must  tend  to  gravitate,  to  minimize,  and  more  and 
more,  until  your  Bible  is  reduced  to  Shakespeare  or  (who 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  21 

knows?)  to  Bret  Harte.  The  fabricators  of  degrees  in  In- 
spiration— the  men  who  so  self -confidently  set  forth  to  us 
their  four  classes, — the  inspirations  of  "elevation,"  of 
"superintendence,"  of  "suggestion,"  of  "direct  dictation," 
— tell  us  themselves  that  the  last  is  the  highest.  Ah  well !  we 
will  choose — we  will  cling  to  that  highest.  Why  not? 
If  dictation  anywhere — in  any  one  instance,  then  dicta- 
tion all  the  way  through.  If  not,  why  not?  Where  are 
the  limits  ?  Where  shall  we  stop  ?  Suppose  certain 
words  in  the  Scripture — only  a  few — to  be  put  there  by 
God.  Suppose  this  admitted,  and  it  is  admitted — who 
shall  define  the  number  of  those  words?  Who  shall  as- 
sume to  stand  up  and  tell  us  where  God  the  Holy  Ghost  ex- 
presses Himself  in  the  very  form  of  the  word  and  where  He 
retires  from  the  word  and  leaves  it  a  shell  merely  human? 
The  difficulties  attaching  to  any  other  view  of  Inspira- 
tion than  the  Verbal  are  simply  overwhelming.  Suppose 
that  something,  no  matter  how  little — whatever  you  please 
— be  left  to  the  writers  themselves,  and  who  shall  satisfy 
us  that  nothing  essential  has  been  omitted,  nothing  irrele- 
vant or  trifling  has  been  emphasized,  nothing  inaccurate 
has  been  set  down  ?  Who  does  not  see  that,  so,  inspira- 
tion is  utterly  lost? 

5.  And  that  leads,  logically,  up  to  the  climacteric  position, 
that  we  must  hold  to  Verbal  Inspiration,  or  if  not,  at  last — 
give  up  the  Bible.  What  other  result  can  there  be?  Is 
not  this  just  what  it  comes  back  to — "I  receive  what  ap- 
peals to  my  likings,  I  repudiate  what  I  dislike?"  In  other 
words,  I  make  my  consciousness  my  arbiter;  my  prejudice, 
my  Book;  and  my  self-will,  my  God. 

The  subject  which  has  fallen  to  my  lot  in  this  discussion* 
is,  The  Testimony  of  the  Scriptures  to  themselves — their 
own  self-evidence — the  overpowering,  unparticipated  wit- 
ness that  they  bring. 

Permit  me  to  expand  this  witness  under  the  following 
heads : 


*This  discourse  was  first  delivered  in  Philadelphia  at  an  inter- 
denominational conference  in  which  the  author  represented  the 
Dutch  Reformed  Church. 


22  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

I.  Immortality. 
II.  Authority. 

III.  Transcendent  Doctrine. 

IV.  Direct  Assertion. 

V.  The   Casket   of    the   Gem — the    very   Language    in 
which  Revelation  is  enshrined. 

I.  Immortality — "I  have  written!"  All  other  books 
die.  "Most  of  the  libraries  are  cemeteries  of  dead  books." 
The  vast  perennial  literature  falls  as  the  leaves  fall,  and 
perishes  as  they  perish.  Few  old  books  survive,  and  fewer 
of  those  that  survive  have  any  influence.  Even  to  scholars 
the  names  of  Epictetus  and  Lucretius — of  the  Novum 
Organum — of  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  convey  nothing  more 
than  a  title.  They  have  heard  of  those  books — have  skimm- 
ed a  page  or  two  here  and  there, — that  is  all.  Most  of  the 
books  we  quote  from  have  been  written  within  the  last  three 
or  even  one  hundred  years. 

But  here  is  a  book  whose  antemundane  voices  had  grown 
old,  when  voices  spake  in  Eden.  A  book  which  has  sur- 
vived not  only  with  continued  but  increasing  lustre,  vitality, 
vivacity,  popularity,  rebound  of  influence.  A  book  which 
avalanches  itself  with  accretions,  like  the  snowball  that 
packs  as  it  goes.  A  book  which  comes  through  all  the 
shocks  without  a  wrench,  and  all  the  furnaces  of  all  the 
ages — like  an  iron  safe — with  every  document  in  every 
pigeon-hole,  without  a  warp  upon  it,  or  the  smell  of  fire. 
Here  is  a  book  of  which  it  may  be  said,  as  of  Immortal 
Christ  Himself — "Thou  hast  the  dew  of  thy  youth  from 
the  womb  of  the  morning."  A  book  dating  from  days  as 
ancient  as  those  of  the  Ancient  of  Days — and  which,  when 
all  that  makes  up  what  we  see  and  call  the  universe  shall 
be  dissolved,  will  still  speak  on  in  thunder-tones  of  majes- 
ty, and  whisper-tones  of  light  and  music-tones  of  love — 
for  it  is  wrapping  in  itself  the  everlasting  past — and  open- 
ing and  expanding  from  itself  the  everlasting  future:  and, 
like  an  all-irradiating  sun,  will  still  roll  on,  while  deathless 
ages  roll,  the  one  unchanging,  unchangeable  Revelation 
of  God. 

II.  Immortality  is  on  these  pages,  and  Authority  sets 
here  her  seal.    This  is  the  second  point,  a  Standard. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  23 

Useless  to  talk  about  no  standard.  Nature  points  to 
one.  Conscience  cries  out  for  one — conscience  which  with- 
out a  law  constantly  wages  the  internal  and  excruciating 
war  of  accusing  or  else  excusing  itself. 

There  must  be  a  Standard  and  an  Inspired  Standard — 
for  Inspiration  is  the  Essence  of  Authority,  and  authority 
is  in  proportion  to  Inspiration — the  more  Inspired  the 
greater  the  authority — the  less,  the  less.  Even  the  ra- 
tionalist Rothe,  a  most  intense  opponent,  has  admitted  that 
"that  in  the  Bible  which  is  not  the  product  of  direct  inspira- 
tion has  no  binding  power." 

Verbal  and  direct  Inspiration  is,  therefore,  the  "Ther- 
mopylae" of  Biblical  and  Scriptural  faith.  No  breath,  no 
syllable;  no  syllable,  no  word;  no  word,  no  Book;  no 
Book,  no  religion. 

We  hold,  from  first  to  last,  that  there  can  be  no  pos- 
sible advance  in  Revelation — no  new  light.  What  was 
written  at  first,  the  same  thing  stands  written  to-day,  and 
will  stand  forever.  The  Bible,  the  true  fact  beneath  the 
Grecian  myth,  springs  into  light  Minerva-like,  full  armed. 
The  emanation  of  the  mind  of  God — it  is  complete,  perfect. 
"Nothing  can  be  put  to  it,  nor  anything  taken  from  it." 
Its  ipse  dixit  is  peremptory — final.  What  can  be  more 
awful,  more  stupendous  than  the  sanction  which  rounds  up 
the  Book,  by  which  it  is  secured  and  sealed  and  guarded? 
"If  any  man  shall  add  unto  these  things,  God  shall  add  unto 
him  the  plagues  that  are  written  in  this  Book :  a<td  if  any 
man  shall  take  away  from  the  words  of  the  Book  of  this 
prophecy,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  out  of  the  Book 
of  life,  and  out  of  the  Holy  City,  and  from  the  things 
which  are  written  in  this  Book." 

The  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God,  and  not  simply  con- 
tains it.     This  is  clear, — 

Because  all  the  words  in  it,  even  those  of  the  Devil  and 
of  wicked  men,  were  put  down  by  the  finger  of  God. 

Because  the  Bible  styles  itself  the  Word  of  God.  "The 
Word  of  the  Lord  is  right,"  says  the  Psalmist.  Again, 
"Thy  Word  is  a  lamp  to  my  feet."  "Wherewithal  shall  a 
young  man  cleanse  his  way?  By  taking  heed  thereto  ac- 
cording to  Thy  Word."    "The  grass  withereth,"  says  Isaiah, 


24  THE   DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

"the  flower  thereof  fadeth,  but  the  Word  of  our  God  shall 

stand  forever." 

Not  only  is  the  Bible  called  the  Word  of  God,  but  it  is 

distinguished  from  all  other  books  by  that  very  title.     It 

is  so  distinguished  in  the  119th  Psalm,  and  everywhere  the 

contrast  between  it  and  every  human  book  is  deepened  and 

sustained. 
t 

If  we  will  not  call  the  Bible  the  Word  of  God,  then 
we  cannot  call  it  anything  else.  If  we  insist  upon  a  de- 
scription rigorously  exact  and  unexposed  to  shafts  of  wan- 
ton criticism,  then  the  Book  remains  annonymous.  We 
cannot  more  consistently  say  "Holy  Scripture,"  because 
the  crimes  recorded  on  its  pages  are  not  holy;  because 
expressions  like  "Curse  God  and  die,"  and  others  from  the 
lips  of  Satan  and  of  wicked  men,  are  unholy.  The  Bible, 
however,  is  "holy,"  because  its  records  are  true  and  its  aim 
and  its  methods  are  holy.  The  Bible,  likewise,  is  the  Word 
of  God,  because  it  comes  from  God ;  because  its  every  word 
was  penned  by  God ;  because  it  is  the  only  exponent  of 
God,  the  only  rule  of  His  procedure,  and  the  Book  by  which 
we  must  at  last  be  judged. 

1.  The  Bible  is  authority  because  in  it,  from  cover  to 
cover,  God  is  the  speaker.  Said  a  leader  of  our  so-called 
orthodoxy  to  a  crowded  audience  but  a  little  while  ago : 
"The  Bible  is  true.  Any  man  not  a  fool  must  believe 
what  is  true.  What  difference  does  it  make  who  wrote 
it?" 

This  difference,  brethren :  the  solemn  bearing  doivn  of 
God  on  the  soul!  My  friend  may  tell  me  what  is  true; 
my  wife  may  tell  me  what  is  true;  but  what  they  say  is 
not  solemn.  Solemnity  comes  in  when  God  looks  into 
my  face — God !  and  behind  Him  everlasting  destiny — 
and  talks  with  me  about  my  soul.  In  the  Bible  God 
speaks,  and  God  is  listened  to,  and  men  are  born  again  by 
God's  Word.  "He  is  not  a  Christian  who  believes  or  obeys 
Matthew  or  John  or  Peter  or  Paul."  What  makes  a 
Christian  is  befieving  and  obeying  God.  "So  then  Faith 
cometh  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by  the  Word  of  God." 
It  is  God's  Revelation  that  faith  hears,  and  it  is  on  God 
revealed  that  faith  rests. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  25 

2.  The  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God.  It  comes  to  us  an- 
nounced by  miracles  and  heralded  with  fire.  Take  the 
Old  Testament — Mt.  Sinai;  take  the  New  Testament — 
Pentecost.  Would  God  himself  stretch  out  His  hand  and 
write  on  tables  in  the  giving,  and  send  down  tongues  of 
fire  for  the  proclamation  of  a  Revelation,  every  particle 
and  shred  of  which  was  not  His  own?  In  other  words, 
would  He  work  miracles  and  send  down  tongues  of  fire 
to  signalize  a  work  merely  human,  or  even  partly  human 
and  partly  Divine?  How  unworthy  of  God,  how  impious, 
how  utterly  impossible  the  supposition  ! 

3.  The  Bible  comes  clothed  with  authority  in  the  high- 
handed and  exalted  terms  of  its  address.  God  in  the  Bible 
speaks  out  of  a  whirlwind  and  with  the  voice  of  Elias.  What 
grander  proof  of  literal  inspiration  can  be.  than  in  the 
high-handed  method  and  imperative  tone  of  prophets  and 
apostles  which  enabled  them — poor  men,  obscure,  and  with- 
out an  influence ;  fishermen,  artisans,  publicans,  day-labor- 
ers— to  brave  and  boldly  teach  the  world  from  Pharaoh  and 
from  Nero  down?  Was  this  due  to  anything  less  than 
God  speaking  in  them — to  the  overpowering  impulse  and 
seizure  of  God?  Who  can  believe  it?  Who  is  not  struck 
with  the  power  and  the  wisdom  of  God?  "His  words  were 
in  my  bones,"  cries  one.  "I  could  not  stay.  The  lion  hath 
roared,  who  will  not  fear ;  the  Lord  hath  spoken,  who  can 
but  prophesy?" 

4.  The  Bible  is  the  optime  of  authority,  because  it  is 
from  first  to  last  a  glorious  projection  on  the  widest  scale 
of  the  decrees  of  God.  The  sweep  of  the  Bible  is  from  the 
Creation  of  Angels  to  a  new  heaven  and  new  earth,  across 
a  lake  of  fire.  What  a  field  for  events !  what  an  expanse 
beyond  the  sweep  or  even  reach  of  human  forethought, 
criticism,  or  co-operation !  what  a  labyrinth  upon  whose 
least,  minutest  turning  hangs  entire  redemption,  since  a 
chain  is  never  stronger  than  its  smallest  link !  Who,  then, 
will  dare  to  speak  till  God  has  spoken?  "I  will  declare  the 
decree !"  That  pushes  everything  aside — that  makes  the 
declaration  an  extension,  so  to  say,  of  the  Declarer.  "I 
will  declare  the  decree !"  When  we  consider  that 
the  Bible  is  an  exact  projection  of  the  decrees  of  God  into 


26  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  future,  this  argument  is  seen  to  lift,  indeed,  to  a  climax; 
and,  in  fact,  it  does  reach  to  the  very  Crux  of  controversy; 
for  the  hardest  thing  for  us  to  believe  about  God  is  to 
believe  that  He  exactly  absolutely  knows,  because  He  has 
ordained,  the  future.  Every  attribute  of  God  is  easier 
to  grasp  than  that  of  an  infallible  Omniscience.  "I  will 
declare  the  decree,"  therefore,  calls  for  direct  inspiration. 

5.  The  Bible  is  the  optime  of  authority,  because  the 
Hooks  at  the  end  of  the  chain  prove  the  dictated  Inspira^ 
tion  of  its  every  link.  Compare  the  Fall  in  Genesis — 
(one  link),  with  the  Resurrection  in  the  Apocalypse — the 
other.  Compare  the  Old  Creation  in  the  first  chapters  of 
the  Old  Testament  with  the  New  Creation  in  the  last 
chapters  of  the  New.  "We  open  the  first  pages  of  the 
Bible,"  says  Valloton,  "and  we  find  there  the  recital  of  the 
creation  of  the  world  by  the  word  of  God — of  the  fall  of 
man,  of  his  exile  from  God — far  from  Paradise,  and  far 
far  from  the  tree  of  life.  We  open  the  last  pages  of  the 
last  of  the  66  books  dating  4,000  years  later.  God  is  still 
speaking.  He  is  still  creating.  He  creates  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth.  Man  is  found  there  recovered.  He  is 
restored  to  communion  with  God.  He  dwells  again  in 
Paradise,  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  tree  of  life.  Who  is 
not  struck  by  the  strange  correspondence  of  this  end  with 
that  beginning?  Is  not  the  one  the  prologue,  the  other 
the  epilogue  of  a  drama  as  vast  as  unique?" 

6.  The  Bible  is  the  optime  of  authority,  because,  over 
this  vast  range  of  supernatural,  confessedly  Divine  thought, 
purpose,  and  action,  there  are  no  lights,  and  no  explanations, 
save  those  furnished  by  the  Book  itself.  That  Book  must 
be  supreme,  whose  only  parallel,  comparison,  and  con- 
firmation is  itself.  Here  is  an  argumentum  ad  homincm. 
Why  do  we  not  possess  concordances  for  other  volumes — 
for  their  very  words?  Because  in  human  writings  there 
is  no  such  nicety — no  such  Divine  significance  as  makes  the 
sense  and  all  the  argument  turn  on  the  single  words,  and 
their  exact  consistency  and  correspondence  everywhere 
throughout  the  book.  Your  concordance,  my  brother,  every 
time  you  take  it  up,  speaks  loudly  to  you  of  the  inspiration 
and  authority  of  Holy  Writ.     It  says  to  you:   "Not  the 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  27 

Bible   only,    but   this    word,    that   word — all   these    single 
words,  are  God-breathed — Divine  !" 

7.  Another  argument  for  the  supreme  authority  of 
Scripture,  is  the  character  of  the  investigation  challenged 
for  the  Word  of  God.  The  Bible  courts  the  closest  scrutiny. 
Its  open  pages  blaze  the  legend:  "Search  the  Scriptures!'' 
Ereunao — "Search.'*  It  is  a  sportsman's  term,  and  borrow- 
ed from  the  chase.  "Trace  out" — "track  out" — follow  the 
word  in  all  its  usages  and  windings.  Scent  it  out  to  its 
remotest  meaning,  as  a  dog  the  hare.  "They  searched." 
again  says  St.  Luke,  in  the  Acts,  of  the  Bereans.  There 
it  is  another  word,  anakrino,  "they  divided  up,"  analyzed, 
sifted,  pulverized,  as  in  a  mortar — to  the  last  thought. 

What  a  solemn  challenge  is  this !  What  book  but  a 
Divine  Book  would  dare  speak  such  a  challenge?  If  a 
book  has  been  written  by  man.  it  is  at  the  mercy  of  men. 
Men  can  go  through  it,  riddle  it,  sift  it,  and  leave  it  be- 
hind them,  worn  out.  But  the  Bible,  a  Book  dropped  from 
heaven,  is  "God-breathed."  It  swells,  it  dilates,  with  the 
bodying  fullness  of  God.  God  has  written  it,  and  none 
can  exhaust  it.  Apply  your  microscopes,  apply  your  tele- 
scopes to  the  material  of  Scripture.  They  separate,  but 
do  not  fray,  its  threads.  They  broaden  out  its  nebulae, 
but  find  them  clustered  stars.  They  do  not  reach  the  hint 
of  poverty  in  Scripture.  They  nowhere  touch  on  coarse- 
ness in  the  fabric,  nor  on  limitations  in  horizon,  as  always 
is  the  case  when  tests  of  such  a  character  are  brought  to 
bear  on  any  work  of  man's.  You  put  a  drop  of  water, 
or  a  fly's  wing,  under  a  microscope.  The  stronger  the 
lens,  the  more  that  drop  of  water  will  expand,  till  it 
becomes  an  ocean  filled  with  sporting  animalcules.  The 
higher  the  power,  the  more  exquisite,  the  more  silken  be- 
come the  tissues  of  the  fly's  wing,  until  it  attenuates  almost 
to  the  golden  and  gossamer  threads  of  a  seraph's.  So  is  it 
with  the  Word  of  God.  The  more  scrutiny,  the  more 
divinity;  the  more  dissection,  the  more  perfection.  We 
cannot  bring  to  it  a  test  too  penetrating,  nor  a  light  too 
lancinating,  nor  a  touchstone  too  exacting. 

The  Bible  is  beyond  all  attempts  at  exhaustion,  not  only, 
but  comprehension.  Xo  human  mind  can,  by  searching, 
find  out  the   fullness  of  God.     "For  what  man   knoweth 


28  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  things  of  a  man  save  the  spirit  of  man  which  is  in  him? 
even  so  the  things  of  God  knoweth  no  man  save  the  Spirit 
of  God." 

III.  That  leads  up  to  the  third  point.  The  Scriptures 
testify  to  their  Divine  Original  by  their  transcendent  dec- 
trine,  their  outshining  light,  their  native  radiance,  the  glow 
of  the  Divine,  the  witness  of  the  Spirit. 

We  should  expect  to  find  a  Book,  that  camie  from 
God,  pencilled  with  points  of  jasper  and  of  sardine  stone 
— enhaloed  with  a  brightness  from  the  everlasting  hills. 
We  should  look  for  that  about  the  book  which,  flashing 
conviction  at  once,  should  carry  overwhelmingly  and  every- 
where, by  its  bare,  naked  witness — by  what  it  simply  is. 
That,  just  as  God,  by  stretching  out  a  hand  to  write  up- 
on the  "plaister"  of  a  Babylonian  palace,  stamped,  through 
mysterious  and  disjointed  words,  conviction  of  Divinity 
upon  Belshazzar  and  each  one  of  his  one  thousand  "lords," 
so,  after  that  same  analogue, — why  not? — God  should 
stretch  out  His  hand  along  the  unrolling  palimpsests  of  all 
ages,  and  write  upon  them  larger  words,  which,  to  the 
secret  recognition  of  each  human  soul  should  say,  not  only, 
"This  is  Truth,"  but  "This  is  Truth,  God-spoken !" 

A  Book  of  Infinites. 

The  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God,  because  it  is  the  Book  of 
Infinites — the  Revelation  of  what  nature,  without  it,  never 
could  have  attained,  and,  coming  short  of  the  knowledge 
of  which,  nature  were  lost. 

The  greatest  need  of  the  soul  is  salvation.  It  is  such  a 
knowledge  of  God  as  shall  assure  us  of  "comfort"  here  and 
hereafter.  Such  knowledge,  nature,  outside  of  the  Bible, 
does  not  contain.  Everywhere  groping  in  his  darkness, 
man  is  confronted  by  two  changeless  facts.  One,  his  guilt, 
which,  as  he  looks  down,  sinks  deeper  and  deeper.  The 
other,  the  Justice  of  God,  which,  as  he  looks  up,  lifts  higher 
and  higher.  Infinite  against  Infinite — Infinite  here ;  Infin- 
ite there — no  bridge  between  them!  Nature  helps  to  no 
bridge.    It  nowhere  speaks  of  Atonement. 

Standing  with  Uriel  in  the  sun,  we  launch  the  proposition 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  29 

that  the  Scriptures  are  Divine  in  their  very  message  because 
they  deal  with  three  Infinites : — Infinite  Guilt ;  Infinite  Holi- 
ness ;  Infinite  Atonement. 

A  Book  must  itself  be  infinite  which  deals  with  Infinites ; 
and  a  Book  must  be  Divine  which  divinely  reconciles  In- 
finites. 

Infinite  Guilt !  Has  my  guilt  any  bottom  ?  Is  Hell  any 
deeper?  Is  there,  in  introspection,  a  possible  lower,  more 
bottomless  nadir  ?  Infinite  Guilt !  That  is  what  opens, 
caves  away  under  my  feet,  the  longer,  the  more  carefully 
I  plumb  my  own  heart — my  nature,  my  record.  Infinitely 
guilty !  That  is  what  I  am  and  where — far,  far  below  the 
plane  of  self-apology,  or  ghastly  "criticism"  of  the  Book 
which  testifies  to  this.  Infinitely  guilty !  That  is  what  I 
am.  Infinitely  sinking,  and,  below  me,  an  infinite  Tophet. 
I  know  that.  As  soon  as  the  Bible  declares  it,  I  know  it, 
and,  with  it,  I  know  that  witnessing  Bible  divine.  I  know 
it — I  do  not  know  how — by  an  instinct,  by  conscience,  by 
illumination,  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God ;  by  the 
Word  without,  and  by  the  flashed  conviction  in  me  which 
accord. 

And  counterpoised  above,  me,  a  correlative  Infinite — 
God!  What  can  be  higher?  What  zenith  loftier?  What 
doming  of  responsibility  more  dread  or  more  portentous? 
Infinite  God — above  me — coming  to  judge  me !  On  the 
way  now.  I  must  meet  Him.  I  know  that.  I  know  it,  as 
soon  as  the  Bible  declares  it.  I  know  it — I  do  not  know 
how — by  an  instinct.  Even  the  natural  man  must  picture  to 
himself  when  thus  depicted,  and  must  fear, 

"A  God  in  grandeur,  and  a  world  on  fire." 

An  infinitely  Holy  God  above  me,  coming  to  judge  me. 
That  is  the  Second  Infinite. 

Then  the  Third  and  what  completes  the  Triangle,  and 
makes  its  sides  eternally,  divinely  equal — Infinite  Atone- 
ment— an  Infinite  Saviour — God  on  the  cross  making  an- 
swer to  God  on  the  throne — my  Jesus — my  refuge — my 
Everlasting  Jehovah. 

By  these  three  Infinites — especially  this  last — this  infinite 
Atonement,  for  which  my  whole  being  cries  out  its  last  cry 
of  exhaustion — by  this  third  side  of  the  stupendous  Tri- 


30  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

angle — the  side  which,  left  to  myself,  I  could  never  make 
out,  the  Bible  proves  itself  the  soul's  Geometry — the  one 
Eternal  Mathematics — the  true  Revelation  of  God. 

Aye  !  and  by  that  ineffable  something — self-luminous — 
flooding  the  soul,  which  bathing  the  Book  bears  the  reader 
as  well  on  its  tide. 

La  larga  ploia 
Dello  Spirito  santo,  ch'e  diffusa 
In  su  le  Vecchie  e  in  su  le  nuove  cuoia, 
£  sillogismo,  clie  la  mi  ha  conchiusa 
Acutamente  si,  che  in  verso  d'ella 
Ogni  dimostrazion  mi  pare  ottusa. 

"The  flood,  I  answered,  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
Rained  down  upon  the  Ancient  Testament  and  New, 
This  is  the  reasoning  that  convinceth  me 
So  feelingly,  each  argument  beside 
Seems  blunt  and  forceless  in  comparison."* 

We  take  the  ground  that  these  three  things — Guilt,  God, 
Atonement — set  thus  in  star-like  apposition  and  conjunc- 
tion, speak  from  the  sky,  more  piercingly  than  stars  do,  say- 
ing: "Sinner  and  sufferer,  this  Revelation  is  Divine!" 

The  Scriptures  are  their  own  self-evidence.  The  refusal 
of  the  Bible  on  its  simple  presentation,  is  enough  to  damn 
any  man,  and  if  persisted  in,  will  damn  him — for, 

"A  glory  gilds  the  sacred  page, 

Majestic,  like  the  sun, 
It  gives  a  light  to  every  age, 

It  gives,  but  borrows  none." 

IV.  Glory  spreads  over  the  face  of  the  Scriptures,  but  this 
glory,  when  scrutinized  closely,  is  seen  to  contain  certain 
features  and  outlines — testimonies  inside  of  itself,  direct 
assertions,  which  conspire  to  illustrate  again  its  high  Divin- 
ity, and  to  confirm  its  claim. 

This  is  our  fourth  point:  The  Scriptures  say  of  themselves 
that  they  are  Divine.    They  not  only  assume  it ;  they  say  it. 

*Dante — 77  Paradiso, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  31 

And  this,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  is  intrinsic — a  witness  in- 
side of  the  witness,  and  one  upon  which  something  more 
than  conviction — confidence,  or  Spirit-born  and  saving  faith, 
depends. 

The  argument  from  the  self-assertion  of  Scripture  is 
cumulative. 

1  st.  The  Bible  claims  that,  as  a  Book,  it  comes  from 
God. 

2d.  It  asserts  that  its  very  words  are  the  words  of  God; 
that  each  pen-stroke  is  God-breathed — inspired. 

Now,  let  us  go  back,  and  resume  these  two  points  a 
little  more  slowly;  and, 

1st.  The  Bible  claims  that,  as  a  Book,  it  comes  from 
God.     In  various  ways,  it  urges  this  claim. 

One  thing;  it  says  so.  "God  in  old  times  spake  by  the 
prophets;  God  now  speaks  by  His  Son."  The  question  of 
Inspiration  is,  in  its  first  statement,  the  question  of  Revela- 
tion itself.  If  the  Book  be  divine,  then  what  it  says  of  it- 
self is  Divine.  The  Scriptures  are  inspired  because  they 
say  they  are  inspired.  The  question  is  simply  one  of  Divine 
testimony,  and  our  business  is,  as  simply,  to  receive  that 
testimony.  "Inspiration  is  as  much  an  assertion,"  says 
Haldane,  "as  is  justification  by  faith.  Both  stand,  and 
equally,  on  the  authority  of  Scripture,  which  is  as  much 
an  ultimate  authority  upon  this  point  as  upon  any  other." 
When  God  speaks,  and  when  He  says  "I  speak !"  there  is 
the  whole  of  it.  He  is  bound  to  be  heard  and  obeyed.  And 
God  does  speak.  He  brings  the  Bible  to  us,  and  He  claims 
to  be  its  Author.  If,  at  this  moment,  yonder  heavens  were 
opened — the  curtained  canopy  of  star-sown  clouds  rolled 
back — if,  amid  the  brightness  of  the  light  ineffable,  the 
Dread  Eternal  were  Himself  seen,  rising  from  His  throne, 
and  heard  to  speak  to  us  in  voices  audible — no  one  of 
these  could  be  more  potent,  more  imperative,  than  what 
lies  now  before  us  upon  Inspiration's  page. 

In  the  Bible,  God  speaks,  and  speaks  not  only  by  proxy. 
Leviticus  is  a  signal  example  of  this.  Chapter  after  chapter 
of  Leviticus  begins:  "And  the  Lord  spake,  saying;"  and 
so  it  runs  on  through  the  chapter.  Moses  is  simply  a 
listener,  a  scribe.    The  self  announced  speaker  is  God. 


32  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

In  the  Bible,  God  himself  comes  down  and  speaks,  not 
in  the  Old  Testament  alone,  and  not  alone  by  proxy.  "The 
New  Testament  presents  us,"  says  Dean  Burgon,  "with  the 
august  spectacle  of  the  Ancient  of  Days,  holding  the  entire 
volume  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  in  His  hands,  and 
interpreting  it  of  Himself.  He,  the  Incarnate  Word,  'who 
was  in  the  beginning  with  God,'  and  'who  was  God' — that 
same  Almighty  One  is  set  forth  in  the  Gospels  as  holding 
the  'volume  of  the  Book'  in  His  hands — as  opening  and 
unfolding  it,  and  explaining  it  everywhere  of  Himself." 
Christ  everywhere  receives  the  Scriptures,  and  speaks  of 
the  Scriptures,  in  their  entirety — the  Law,  the  Prophets, 
and  the  Psalms,  the  whole  Old  Testament  canon — as  the 
living  Oracle  of  God.  He  accepts  and  He  endorses  every- 
thing written,  and  even  makes  most  prominent  those  mir- 
acles which  infidelity  regards  as  most  incredible.  And  He 
does  all  this  upon  the  ground  of  the  authority  of  God.  He 
passes  over  the  writer — leaves  him  out  of  account.  In  all 
His  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament,  He  mentions  but 
four  of  the  writers  by  name.  The  question  with  Him  is  not 
a  question  of  the  reporter,  but  of  the  Dictator.  Suppose  a 
sovereign  like  Kaiser  Wilhelm  dictating  five  or  six  letters 
to  five  or  six  different  private  secretaries  at  once.  Suppose 
that  six  agents  have  penned  the  -  six  parts  of  one  letter ! 
Our  Saviour  does  not  see  the  six  pens.  He  sees  the  one 
Writer,  the  one  Hand  outstretched,  viewless,  infallible,  aw- 
ful— behind  all  human  hands. 

And  this  position  of  our  Saviour  which  exalted  Srcip- 
ture  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  living  God  was  steadily  main- 
tained by  the  apostles  and  the  apostolic  Church.  Again  and 
over  again,  in  the  book  of  the  Acts,  in  all  the  Epistles,  do 
we  find  such  expressions  as  "He  saith,"  "God  saith,"  "The 
oracles  of  God,"  "The  Holy  Ghost  saith,"  "Well  spake  the 
Holy  Ghost  by  Esaias  the  prophet." 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  furnishes  a  splendid  illus- 
tration of  this,  where,  setting  forth  the  whole  economy  of 
the  Mosaic  rites,  the  author  adds,  "The  Holy  Ghost  this 
signifying."  Further  on,  and  quoting  words  of  Jeremiah, 
he  enforces  them  with  the  remark,  "The  Holy  Ghost  is 
witness  to  us  also."  The  imperial  argument  on  Psalm  xcv 
he  clenches  with  the  application,  "Wherefore  (as  the  Holy 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  33 

Ghost  saith).  To-day  if  ye  will  hear  His  voice."  Through- 
out the  entire  Epistle,  whoever  may  have  been  the  writer 
quoted  from,  the  words  of  the  quotation,  are  referred  to 
God.* 

2d.  But  now  let  us  come  closer,  to  the  very  exact  and 
categorical  and  unequivocal  assertion.  If  the  Scriptures 
as  a  Book  are  Divine,  then  what  they  say  of  themselves  is 
Divine.    What  do  they  say  ? 

In  this  inquiry,  let  us  keep  our  fingers  on  two  words,  and 
always  on  two  words — the  Apostolic  keys  to  the  whole 
Church  position —  ypa<p?)  ^f.6itvEv6ro%  "Graphe" — writing, 
writing,  the  Writing, — not  somebody,  something  back  of 
the  Writing.    The  Writing,  "He  Graphe,"  that  was  inspired. 

And  what  is  meant  by  inspired?  "Theopneustos,"  God- 
breathed.  Modern  theologians  have  played  at  shuttle-cock 
with  various  degrees  of  inspiration.  It  is  indeed  a 
wretched  play — this  bandying  of  quibbles  in  the  mouths 
of  mortals  to  whom  God  vouchsafes  to  speak,  and  who 
themselves  are  sitting  shaking  on  the  crumbling  precipice  of 
an  Eternal  destiny. 

Degrees  of  inspiration !  Shades  of  varying  value  in  the 
cadences  of  the  Almighty's  voice !  He  whispers,  hesitates, 
speaks  low  in  Esther,  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  St.  Mark, 
and  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  St.  John's  Gospel.  He  stutters, 
falters  in  the  Genealogies ;  is  inaccurate  in  figures.  He 
evidently  weakens,  halts :  Almighty  God  breaks  down ! 

Degrees  of  inspiration !  The  older  theologians,  thank 
God ;  did  not  know  them — nor  own  them.  Why  should 
they?  As  well  discuss  degrees  in  Deity,  in  Predestination, 
in  Providence,  as  talk  about  degrees  in  that  of  which  Au- 
gustine says :  "Whatsoever  He  willed  that  we  should  read 
either  of  His  doings  or  sayings,  that  He  commissioned  His 
agents  to  write,  as  if  their  hands  had  been  His  own  hands." 

"God  breathed"  sweeps  the  whole  ground.  God  comes 
down  as  a  blast  on  the  pipes  of  an  organ, — in  voice  like  a 
whirlwind,  or  in  still  whispers  like  Aeolian  tones,  and  say- 
ing the  word,  He  seizes  the  hand,  and  makes  that  hand  in 
His  own  the  pen  of  a  most  ready  writer. 

Pasa  Graphe  Theopneustos!    "All  sacred  writing."   More 

*01shausen,  Die  Echtheit  des  N.  T.,  cited  by  Dr.  Lee, 


34  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

exactly,  "every  sacred  writing" — every  mark  on  the  parch- 
ment is  "God-breathed."     So  says  St.  Paul. 

Pasa  Graphe  Theopncustos!  The  sacred  assertion  is  not 
of  the  instruments,  but  of  the  Author;  not  of  the  agents,  but 
of  the  Product.  It  is  the  sole  and  sovereign  vindication  of 
what  has  been  left  on  the  page  when  Inspiration  gets 
through.  "What  is  written,"  says  Jesus,  "how  readest 
thou?"     Men  can  only  read  what  is  written. 

Pasa  Graphe  Theopncustos!  God  inspires  not  men,  but 
language.  The  phrase,  "inspired  men,"  is  not  found  in  the 
Bible.  The  Scripture  never  employs  it.  The  Scripture 
says  that  "holy  men  were  moved" — pheromcnoi — but  that 
their  writing,  their  manuscript,  what  they  put  down  and 
left  on  the  page,  was  God-breathed.  You  breathe  upon 
a  pane  of  glass.  Your  breath  congeals  there ;  freezes  there ; 
stays  there;  fixes  an  ice-picture  there.  That  is  the  notion. 
The  writing  on  the  page  beneath  the  hand  of  Paul  was 
just  as  much  breathed  on,  breathed  into  that  page,  as  was 
His  soul  breathed  into  Adam. 

The  Chirograph  was  God's  incarnate  voice,  as  truly  as 
the  flesh  of  Jesus  sleeping  on  the  "pillow"  was  incarnate 
God. 

We  take  the  ground  that  on  the  original  parchment — 
the  membrane — every  sentence,  word,  line,  mark,  point, 
pen-stroke,  jot,  title,  was  put  there  by  God. 

On  the  original  parchment.  There  is  no  question  of  other, 
anterior  parchments.  Even  were  we  to  indulge  the  violent 
extra-Scriptural  notion  that  Moses  or  Matthew  transcribed 
from  memory  or  from  other  books  the  things  they  have 
left  us;  still,  in  any,  in  every  such  case,  the  selection,  the 
expression,  the  shaping  and  turn  of  the  phrase  on  the 
membrane  was  the  work  of  an  unaided  God. 

But  what?  Let  us  have  done  with  extra-Scriptural,  pre- 
sumptuous suppositions.  The  burning  Isaiah — the  per- 
fervid,  wheel-gazing  Ezekiel — the  ardent,  seraphic  St.  Paul, 
caught  up,  up,  up  into  that  Paradise  which  he  himself  calls 
the  "third  heaven" — were  these  men  only  "coypists,"  mere 
self-moved  "redactors?"  I  trow  not.  Their  pens  urged, 
swayed,  moved  hither,  thither  by  the  sweep  of  a  heavenly 
current,  stretched  their  feathered  tops,  like  that  of  Luke 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  35 

upon  St.  Peter's  dome,  into  the  far-off  Empyrean — winged 
from  the  throne  of  God. 

We  take  the  ground  that  on  the  original  parchment, 
the  membrane,  every  sentence,  word,  line,  mark,  point, 
pen-stroke,  jot,  tittle,  was  put  there  by  God. 

On  the  original  parchment.  Men  may  destroy  that  parch- 
ment. Time  may  destroy  it.  To  say  that  the  membranes 
have  suffered  in  the  hand's  of  men,  is  but  to  say  that  every- 
thing Divine  must  suffer,  as  the  pattern  Tabernacle  suf- 
fered, when  committed  to  our  hands.  To  say,  however, 
that  the  writing  has  suffered — the  words  and  letters — is  to 
say  that  Jehovah  has  failed. 

The  writing  remains.  Like  that  of  a  palimpsest,  it  will 
survive  and  reappear,  no  matter  what  circumstances, — what 
changes  come  in  to  scatter,  obscure,  disfigure,  or  blot  it 
away.  Not  even  one  lonely  "Theos*"  writ  large  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  on  the  Great  Uncial  "C"  as,  with  my  own 
eyes  I  have  seen  it — plain,  vivid,  glittering,  outstarting  from 
behind  the  pale  and  overlying  ink  of  Ephraem  the  Syrian — 
can  be  buried.  Like  Banquo's  ghost,  it  will  rise ;  and  God 
himself  replace  it,  and,  with  a  hammer-stroke,  beat  down 
deleting  hands.  The  parchments,  the  membranes  decay; 
the  writings,  the  words  are  eternal  as  God.  Strip  off  the 
plaster  from  Belshazzar's  palace,  yet  Mene  I  Mene !  Tekel ! 
Upharsin  \  remain.    They  remain. 

Let  us  go  through  them,  and  from  the  beginning,  and 
see  what  the  Scriptures  say  of  themselves. 

One  thing:  they  say  that  God  spake,  itdXai  lv  toU 
7rooq>rjTai?  "anciently  and  all  the  way  down,  in  the 
prophets."  One  may  make,  if  he  pleases,  the  iv  instru- 
mental— as  it  is  more  often  instrumental — i.  e.,  "by" 
the  prophets ;  but  in  either  case,  in  them,  or  by  them,  the 
Speaker  was  God. 

Again :  the  Scriptures  say  that  the  laws  the  writers 
promulgated,  the  doctrines  they  taught,  the  stories  they 
recorded — above  all,  their  prophecies  of  Christ,  were  not 
their  own  ;  were  not  originated,  nor  conceived  by  them. — 
were  not  rehearsed,  by  them,  from  memory,  nor  obtained 
from  any  outside  sources — were  not  what  they  had  any 
means,  before,  of  knowing,  or  of  comprehending,  but  were 

*"God"  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,  1  Tim.  16. 


36  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

immediately  from  Gocl;  they  themselves  being  only  recip- 
ient, only  concurrent  with  God,  as  God  moved  upon  them. 

Some  of  the  speakers  of  the  Bible,  as  Balaam,  the  Old 
Prophet  of  Bethel,  Caiaphas,  are  seized  and  made  to  speak 
in  spite  of  themselves ;  and,  with  the  greatest  reluctance,  to 
utter  what  is  farthest  from  their  minds  and  hearts.  Others 
— in  fact  all — are  purblind  to  the  very  oracles,  instructions, 
visions,  they  announce.  "Searching  what,  or  what  manner 
of  time,  the  Spirit  of  Christ  which  was  in  them  did  signify !" 
i.  e.,  the  prophets  themselves  did  not  know  what  they  wrote. 
What  picture  can  be  more  impressive  than  that  of  the 
prophet  himself  hanging  over  and  contemplating  in  sur- 
prise, in  wonder,  in  amazement,  his  own  autograph — as  if 
it  had  been  left  upon  the  table  there — the  relict  of  some 
strange  and  supernatural  Hand?  How  does  that  picture 
lift  away  the  Bible  from  all  human  hands  and  place  it  back, 
as  His  original  Deposit,  in  the  hands  of  God. 

Again :  it  is  said  that  "the  Word  of  the  Lord  came"  to 
such  and  such  a  writer.  It  is  not  said  that  the  Spirit  came, 
which  is  true;  but  that  the  Word  itself  came,  the  Dabar- 
Jehovah.  And  it  is  said :  "Hayo  Haya  Dabar,"  that  it 
substantially  came — essentially  came  "essendo  fuit" — so  say 
Pagninus,  Montanus,  Polanus — i.  e.,  it  came  germ,  seed  and 
husk  and  blossom — in  its  totality — "words  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  teacheth" — the  "words." 

Again :  it  is  denied,  and  most  emphatically,  that  the  words 
are  the  words  of  the  man — of  the  agent.  "The  Spirit  of 
the  Lord,"  says  David,  "spake  by  me,  and  His  word  was 
in  my  tongue."  St.  Paul  asserts  that  "Christ  spake  in  him" 
(2  Cor.  xiii:3).  "Who  hath  made  man's  mouth?  Have 
not  I,  the  Lord?  I  will  put  my  words  into  thy  mouth." 
That  looks  very  much  like  what  has  been  stigmatized  as 
the  "mechanical  theory."  It  surely  makes  the  writer  a 
mere  organ,  although  not  an  unconscious,  or  unwilling,  un- 
spontaneous  organ.  Could  language  more  plainly  assert  or 
defend  a  verbal  direct  inspiration? 

Yes,  but  in  only  one  way — i.  e.,  by  denying  the  agent. 
And  that  denial  we  equally  have  from  the  lips  of  our  Saviour. 
"It  is  not  ye  that  speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your  Father  which 
speaketh  in  you.  Take  no  thought  how  or  what  ye  shall 
say.     The  Holy  Ghost  shall  teach  you  what  ye  ought  to 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  37 

say" — both  the  "how''  and  the  "what" — both  the  matter 
and   form. 

In  a  line  with  the  fact,  again  it  is  said  that  the  word 
came  to  the  writers  without  any  study — "suddenly"  as  to 
Amos  (chap,  vii  :i5) ,  where  he  is  taken  from  following 
the  flock. 

Again :  When  the  word  thus  came  to  the  prophets  they 
had  not  the  pozver  to  conceal  it.  It  was  "like  a  fire  in  their 
bones"  which  must  speak  or  write,  as  Jeremiah  says,  or 
consume  its  human  receptacle. 

And  to  make  this  more  clear,  it  is  said  that  holy  men 
were  phcromcnoi,  "moved"  or  rather  carried  along  in  a 
supernatural,  ecstatic  current — a  dclectatio  scribendi.  They 
were  not  left  one  instant  to  their  wit,  wisdom,  fancies, 
memories,  or  judgments  either  to  order,  or  arrange,  or 
dispose,  or  write  out.  They  were  only  reporters,  intelligent, 
conscious,  passive,  plastic,  docile,  exact,  and  accurate  re- 
porters. They  were  like  men  who  wrote  with  different  kinds 
of  ink.  They  colored  their  work  with  tints  of  their  own 
personality,  or  rather  God  colored  it,  having  made  the  writer 
as  the  writing,  and  the  writer  for  that  special  writing;  and 
because  the  work  ran  through  them  just  as  the  same  water, 
running  through  glass  tubes,  yellow,  green,  red,  violet, 
will  be  yellow,  violet  and  green,  and  red. 

God  wrote  the  Bible,  the  whole  Bible,  and  the  Bible  as  a 
whole.  He  wrote  each  word  of  it.  as  truly  as  He  wrote 
the  Decalogue  on  the  Tables  of  stone. 

Higher  criticism  tells  us — the  "New  Departure"  tells  us, 
that  Moses  was  inspired,  but  the  Decalogue  not.  But 
Exodus  and  Deuteronomy,  seven  times  over,  declare  that 
God  stretched  down  the  tip  of  His  finger  from  heaven  and 
left  the  marks,  the  gravements,  the  cut  characters,  the 
scratches  on  the  stones  (Exod.  xxiv:i2).  "I  will  give  thee 
Tables  of  stone,  commandments,  which  I  have  written" 
(Exod.  xxxi:i8).  "And  He  gave  unto  Moses,  upon  Mount 
Sinai,  two  tables  of  testimony,  tables  of  stone  written  with 
the  finger  of  God"  (Exod.  xxxii:i6).  "The  Tables  were  the 
work  of  God  and  the  writing  was  the  writing  of  God,  graven 
upon  the  tables"  (Deut.  iv:i2,  13).  "The  Lord  spake  unto 
you  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire,  and  He  declared  unto  you 
His  covenant,  even  ten  commandments,  and  He  wrote  them 


38  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

upon  two  tables  of  stone"  (Deut.  v:22).  "These  words  the 
Lord  spake  and  He  zvrote  them  in  two  Tables  of  stone  and 
delivered  them  unto  me"  (Deut.  ix:io).  "And  the  Lord 
delivered  unto  me  two  Tables  of  stone  written  zvith  the  finger 
of  God!" 

Seven  times,  and  to  men  to  whom  writing  is  instinct ;  to 
beings  who  are  most  of  all  impressed,  not  by  vague  vanish- 
ing voices,  but  by  words  arrested,  fixed,  set  down ;  and  who 
themselves  cannot  resist  the  impulse  to  commit  their  own 
words  to  some  written  deposit,  even  of  stone,  or  of  bark, 
if  they  have  not  the  paper ;  seven  times,  to  men,  to  whom 
writing  is  instinct  and  who  are  inclined  to  rely  for  their 
highest  conviction  on  what  they  have  styled  "documentary 
evidence,"  i.  e.,  on  books ; — God  comes  in  and  declares,  "I 
have  written !" 

The  Scriptures,  whether  with  the  human  instrument  or 
without  the  human  instrument,  with  Moses  or  without 
Moses,  were  written  by  God.  When  God  had  finished,  Moses 
had  nothing  else  to  do  but  carry  down  God's  autograph. 
That  is  our  doctrine.  The  Scriptures,  if  ten  words,  then 
all  the  words — if  the  Law,  then  the  Gospels — the  writing, 
the  writings,  He  Gra-phc — Hai  Graphai — expressions  re- 
peated more  than  fifty  times  in  the  New  Testament  alone — 
this,  these  were  inspired. 

V.  And  so  we  reach  the  fifth  and  closing  head — the 
Casket  of  the  Gem.  The  Bible  is  its  own  self  evidence, 
not  only  in  its  Immortality — in  its  sublime  Authority — in  its 
transcendent  Doctrine — in  its  direct  assertions ;  but  also  in 
the  very  Languages  in  which  it  is  enshrined. 

Let  us  go  back  to  the  Hebrew — to  God's  language — to 
the  tongue  in  which  He  said,  "Let  there  be  light !"  before 
there  was   a  world. 

The  oldest  languages  are  philologically  the  most  perfect, 
and  nothing  else,  perhaps,  betrays  so  deep,  so  pathetic  a 
stamp  of  the  Fall  as  does  the  downward  progress  of  the 
human  tongue. 

Back  of  our  coarser  and  more  block-like  English,  we 
transfer  ourselves  to  the  French,  with  its  subtler  refine- 
ments— with  touches  of  its  hair-like  pencillings  upon  the 
shades  of  thought ;  or  with  its  buoyant  swell  and  give  to 
all  emotion,  as  elasticities  of  wave  to  sinuosities  of  shore. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  39 

And  back  of  this  again :  in  dream-like  thrall  to  more 
melodious  cadences  of  the  Italian  tones — "accents  whose 
5aw  was  beauty,  and  whose  breath  enrapturing  music." 
And  back  of  these — back  of  their  mother-Latin — to  the  in- 
finite versatility  and  grandeur  and  depth  and  comprehen- 
siveness of  the  Greek.  Greek !  in  itself  a  universe  prepared 
for  teeming  and  for  populating  thought.  Greek !  with 
its  infinite  and  wondrous  subtleties  of  shade  in  mood  and 
tense,  its  play  of  graceful  and  innumerable  particles,  and 
cadences  like  chimes  of  air-flung  and  metallic  bells.  And, 
back,  still  back — and,  the  farther,  the  more  complicated 
and  abstruse — the  more  exacting  in  its  constructions — the 
more  precise  in  its  articulations — the  more  attenuated  in  its 
case  and  tense  endings,  is  our  human  speech — the  more 
Divine  a  vehicle  of  wide  enfranchised  thought.  The 
Sanscrit  is  not  any  longer  like  pulley-blocks  roped  to- 
gether, nor  like  corals  threaded  on  a  string.  Smooth  and 
pellucid  in  its  flow,  it  is  as  liquid  sunlight  dropping  in 
echoes  of  a  rhythmic  and  remote  cascade,  as  from  the  ledges 
of  an  upper  and  angelic  heaven. 

Language,  then,  the  higher  we  trace  it,  is  not  found  to 
be  a  bungling  and  mechanical  attempt  at  understanding. 
It  is  more  and  more  the  throb  of  holy  heart  to  heart — 
the  flash  of  heavenly  thought  rekindling  thought,  without 
the  chasmed  break,  without  the  filmy  veil ;  and  all  our  dying 
tongues,  down  to  the  latest,  are  but  fainter  echoes — frag- 
ments of  that  earlier  and  loftier  speech,  in  which  the  angels 
spoke  to  man — Adam  to  God,  and  God  to  Adam.  When  we 
have  reached  the  beginning,  we  have  in  possession  the 
language  of  God;  the  words  and  the  grammar  which  God 
gave  in  Eden — which  man  has  corrupted,  confounded,  lost 
away  in  dialectic  dislocations  since  the  fall. 

The  Hebrew,  like  a  prism  shattered  into  various  lights 
at  Babel,  is  the  matrix  of  all  other  roots  and  forms. 

1.  Because  in  it,  as  in  no  other,  names  are  Divinely  ex- 
pressive. Originally,  names  are  characters  in  photograph. 
They  are,  or  they  should  be,  like  labels  on  phials,  which 
describe  the  contents.  Names  at  the  first  were  manifesta- 
tions of  men  and  of  things.  They  are  so  in  Hebrew.  Adam 
means    "Earthy,"    Seth    "Substituted,"    Noah    "The    Con- 


40  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

soler,"  Abraham  "The  Father  of  Multitudes,"  Jacob  "Sup- 
planter,"  Moses  "Delivered,"  "Drawn  out." 

2.  The  Hebrew  is  origmal,  because  in  it,  as  in  no  other, 
derivatives  are  built  upon  their  roots,  so  that  one  can  look 
through  the  derivative  straight  to  the  root,  or  back,  so  to 
say,  though  the  slides  of  the  telescope  to  the  first  slide — the 
root  notion  ruling  unswervingly  everywhere.  Take  as  an 
example,  Adam — earthy,  because  made  from  the  earth — 
Isha,  "woman,"  because  made  from  Ish,  man.  In  other 
languages  the  continuity  is  often  broken.  In  Greek, 
anthropos,  "man,"  has  no  relation  to  ge,  the  earth.  In 
Latin,  mulicr,  or  femina,  "woman,"  has  no  relation  to  homo. 

3.  The  Hebrew  form  is  antecedent  to  all  similar  forms  in 
all  other  languages.  Its  root  stands  first.  This  is  splendidly 
argued  by  Scaliger  in  opposition  to  the  Maronites,  who 
claimed  a  greater  antiquity  for  the  Syriac.  What  is  the 
Syriac  for  "King,"  says  Scaliger, — Melekah/'.  What  is 
the  Hebrew? — "Melek."  Which  has  the  root,  and  which 
is  the  shorter?    That  settles  it. 

4.  Because  the  language  employed  by  Adam  in  naming 
the  animals  was  Hebrew,  and  that  language  was  not  in- 
vented by  him  upon  the  occasion,  but  had  been  taught  him 
by  God. 

One  thing:  Because  the  names  given  to  the  animals  imply 
a  knowledge  of  their  attributes  and  characteristics. 

Another  thing:  God  had  already  been  talking  to  Adam, 
and  in  the  same  language. 

Again :  It  seems  that  the  animals  were  brought  to  Adam 
as  object-lessons,  to  see  what  he  could  call  them — i.  e.,  God 
wished  to  see  how  accurately  Adam  would  fit  the  name 
taught  to  the   thing. 

5.  Because  language  is  called  in  Scripture,  not  only 
"Throat"  and  "Lip,"  but  especially  "Tongue,"  and  it  is  said 
that  God  teaches  man  this :  "The  Lord  God  hath  given  me 
the  tongue  of  the  learned"  (Isa.l:4).  "The  preparations  of 
the  heart,"  not  only,  but  "the  answer  of  the  tongue,  is  from 
the  Lord." 

6.  Because  the  whole  earth  was  once  of  one  tongue  and 
one  speech,  and  that  speech  by  common  consent  of  all  Jewish 
and  Gentile  Traditions,  the  Lingua  Sancta,  the  Holy,  or 
the  Hebrew  Tongue.  So  says  Ephodeus ;  so  Jonathan  the 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  41 

Paraphrast.  With  this  agree  the  Kabbalists,  the  Jerusalem 
Talmud,  the  Book  of  Cosri,  R.  Ben  Jarchi,  R.  Ben  Ezra,  R. 
Levi  ben  Gerson — as  well  as  Jerome,  Ambrose,  Chrysostom, 
Augustine.* 

7.  Because  God  himself  spoke  before  Adam  was  created, 
and  spoke  in  Hebrew,  calling  "Light,"  DV  Day;  "Dark- 
ness," nj£  Night;  "Firmament,"  *™  Heaven;  "Dry  land," 
p6f   Earth,  etc. 

Hebrew  was  the  first  language,  and  therefore  the  most 
perfect  language;  for  "that  which  is  perfect,"  says  Aristotle, 
"requires  a  perfect  expression" ;  and  Adam,  being  made 
very  good,  must  have  had  a  language  very,  i.  e.,  perfectly 
good ;  besides,  a  language  which  God  speaks,  must  be  like 
God. 

Thus,  stamped  upon  the  gravements  of  its  very  casket — 
upon  the  very  tongues  in  which  it  speaks,  we  read  conspic- 
uous, self-evident,  the  truth,  that  while  Philosophy,  the 
science  of  man,  moves  forward,  Theology,  the  science  of 
God,  moves  bacward — "Philosophia  quotidie  pro-gvessu, 
Theologia  nisi  r^-gressu  non  crescit." 

Backward,  backward,  backward,  the  whole  Volume  moves 
us — not  only  nineteen  centuries  behind  the  present  moment ; 
but  back  of  time  itself  and  every  moment  into  the  light  of 
all  eternities — to  speak  the  proclamation  of  a  Gospel  as 
antique  and  as  unchangeable  as  are  the  determinate  counsel 
and  the  foreknowledge  of  God — for  "Of  Him  and  through 
Him  and  to  Him,  are  all  things —  to  whom  be  the  glory,  for- 
ever.    Amen!" 

Brethren :  the  danger  of  our  present  day — the  "down- 
grade," as  it  has  been  called,  of  doctrine,  of  conviction,  of 
the  moral  sentiment — a  decline  more  constantly  patent,  as 
it  is  more  blantantly  proclaimed,  does  it  not  find  its  first 
step  in  our  lost  hold  upon  the  very  inspiration  of  the  Word 
of  God? 

Does  not  a  fresh  conviction  here,  lie  at  the  root  of  every 
remedy  which  we  desire,  as  its  sad  lack  lies  at  the  root  of 
every  ruin  we  deplore? 

Brethren :  a  fresh  conviction — only  that — of  the  very 
Inspiration  of  the  Word  of  God — spreading  itself  abroad 

♦See  Buxtorf,  "De  Antiquitate  Ling.  Heb." 


42  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

in  the  minds  of  our  earnest  American  people,  would  wake 
— from  Maine  to  Arizona,  and  from  Florida  to  Idaho — the 
wave  of  a  revival  such  as  this  continent  has  never  known. 

Key  up !  then — let  us  key  up  our  "Credo"  in  the  absolute- 
ness of  the  word  which  God  has  spoken.  Bind  again !  Let 
us  re-bind  all  cables  to  that  Anchor,  and  the  Ship  of  destiny, 
including  all  souls'  freightage,  will  again  obey  her  rudder, 
and  be  saved  from  wreck. 

The  great  question  for  every  man  is  that  of  his  personal 
answer  to  the  Word,  spoken  out  of  the  skies,  of  a  personal 
God. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  43 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  THE  HEBREW  LETTERS 
AND  VOWEL-POINTS. 

St.  Matt.  v:i8. 

"For  verily  I  say  unto  you,  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one 
jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law  till  all  be  ful- 
filled." 

The  question  as  to  literal  and  chirographic  inspiration 
will  always  move  back  inch  by  inch  in  discussion,  until  it 
has  reached  and  finally  confronted  the  crucial  defense  of  the 
Reformers — that  of  the  very  Points. 

The  New  Testament  hangs  for  authority  upon  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  Old  Testament  hangs  upon  the  Points. 

It  is  perfectly  well  understood  by  us  all  that  the  con- 
sonants are  characters  or  letters  in  the  Hebrew,  and  that 
the  vowels  are  placed  over  these,  within  them,  but  espe- 
cially beneath  them  in  the  form  of  marks  or  points. 

These  points  determine  the  words,  and  the  words  de- 
termine the  sentence.  Whether  a  word  be  a  noun  or  a 
verb;  or,  if  a  noun,  what  noun?  if  a  verb,  what  verb? 
passive  or  active,  past,  present,  or  future? — all  this,  in  a 
given  particular  case,  may  depend  on  the  points. 

Take  as  an  illustration,  in  the  Hebrew  the  word   1VW    to 

—      T 

esteem.    This,  by  change  of  the  vowels,  becomes  ">1?E>  a  gate; 

-!]>£>  a    porter;   ^  vile;  "V&  to    shudder;    1?&  the    hair; 

"^  fear,  horror.  All  seven  words,  verb,  noun,  or  ad- 
jective, to  be  distinguished  only  by  the  points. 

Take  as  another  illustration,  in  the  English,  the  word 
"Broad,"  for  instance.  The  consonants  are  B.  R.  D.  Now 
for  the  vowels — Bard,  Bird,  Beard,  Board,  Aboard,  Brad, 
Braid,  Bred,  past  of  to  breed — Bread,  an  article  of  food — 
Broad,  Abroad,  Brood.  Twelve  words,  at  least  with  three 
consonants. 

The  manuscript  is  theopneustic,  not  the  man.  The  in- 
sipiration  of  the  Vowel-points — part  of  that  manuscript — 
is  therefore  seen  to  be  integral,  vital.  Of  course,  if  the 
pen-strokes  are   inspired  upon  the  parchment,   the  words 


44  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

are.  Give  the  pen-strokes,  and  you  give  the  words.  The 
establishment  of  the  Points  will,  therefore,  always  be  the 
establishment  of  the  Church  doctrine  of  exact,  direct, 
chirographical  inspiration ;  and  not  only  this,  but  also  the 
establishment  of  one  straight,  permanent,  received,  and 
changeless  text ;  and  this  Dr.  Ginsburg,  himself  the  foremost 
laborer  against  that  text,  as  equally  against  the  vowel- 
points,  most  readily  admits. 

The  constant,  uniform  tradition  of  the  Jews,  affirming 
that  the  points  came  down  from  Moses,  and  the  giving  of 
the  Law,  was  a  tradition  unbroken  down  to  the  year  1538, 
twenty-one  years  after  Luther  had  nailed  up  his  Theses. 
The  points  were  then  denied  by  Elias  Levita,  a  rationalistic 
Jew,  who  stood  alone  against  the  sentiment  of  his  whole 
nation,  at  the  time  of  writing  his  book.*  "It  is  to  the 
Massoreth  Ha  Massoreth  of  Levita,"  as  Dr.  Ginsburg  ad- 
mits, "that  we  owe  the  present  modern  controversy  con- 
cerning the  antiquity  and  inspiration  of  the  Points."  "The 
rejection  of  the  Points,"  as  he  admits,  "by  men  of  laxer 
tendency,  following  Levita,  produced  most  lamentable 
effects,  especially  so  far  as  the  criticism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  concerned"! — effects,  indeed,  we  may  add,  from 
which  we  have  not  yet  recovered,  but  which,  in  spite  of  all 
the  resistance  of  a  sound  and  a  loyal  conservatism,  are 
still  seen  working  themselves  out  in  the  popular,  so-called, 
"Higher  Criticism"  of  the  day.  "It  was,"  continues  Dr. 
Ginsburg,  "the  unwarrantable  liberty  taken  with  the  text, 
first  started  by  Capellus,  following  in  the  wake  of  Levita, 
and  the  resort  to  all  sorts  of  emendations  and  conjectural 
readings,  in  oder  to  sustain  the  peculiar  and  the  precon- 
ceived fancies  of  different  individuals  and  schools,  which 
converted  the  controversy  about  the  Vowel-points  into  an 
Article  of  Faith  in  the  Reformed  Church  of  Switzerland, 
and  led  to  the  enacting  of  a  law  in  1678  that  no  person 
should  be  licensed  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  the  churches, 
unless  he  publicly  declared  that  he  believes  in  the  integrity 
of  the  Hebrew  text,  and  in  the  Divinity  of  the  very  Vowel- 
points." 

The  last  Doctrinal  Confession  of  the  Reformed  Church 


♦Buxtorf,  Tractatus  de  Punc,  Origine.    Caput  II,  p.  3. 
fMassoreth  Ha  Massoreth,  p.  61. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  45 

of  Switzerland,  the  Formula  Consensus  of  1675,  drawn  up 
by  Heidegger  and  Turrettin,  and  which  fitly  closes  the 
period  of  the  great  Calvinistic  confessions,  says  as  follows: 

"In  particular,  do  we  accept  the  Hebrew  Codex  of  the 
Old  Testament,  which  comes  to  us  from  the  hands  of  the 
Jewish  Church,  to  which  were  formerly  committed  the 
'Oracles  of  God' ;  and  we  firmly  maintain  it,  not  only  as  to 
the  consonants,  but  also  as  to  the  vowels,  sive  ipsa  puncta, 
the  very  points ;  the  words  as  well  as  the  things,  as 
thcopneustos — God-breathed — part  of  our  faith,  not  only, 
but  our  very  life." 

The  question  is  settled  for  us,  however,  not  by  traditions 
or  confessions,  but  by  the  Book  itself. 

The  Bible  testifies  the  inspiration  of  the  Points. 

1.  It  says,  with  reference  to  the  Tables  of  the  Law, 
that  they  were  the  work  of  God  absolutely ;  and  that  the 
writing  was  the  writing  of  God — the  whole  of  it ;  and  that 
it  was  graven  of  God — every  scratch  of  it.  See  Exod. 
xxxii.  16. 

2  Our  Saviour  tells  us  that  part  of  these  scratches  were 
"jots,"  or  yodhs,  and  "tittles,"  or  little  pointed  marks,  and 
that  not  one  of  these  shall  pass  away.  The  words  of 
Christ,  "jot,"  "tittle"  (see  Matt.  v:i8),  are  no  repetition 
of  some  common  and  exaggerated  proverb,  and  they  are 
no  tautology.  They  mean,  in  all  Divine  intention  and 
emphasis,  just  what  they  say,  and  they  refer  to  the  specimen 
of  the  two  Tables,  not  only,  but  to  the  whole  scope  of 
Scripture  as  well.  "Seeing  our  Saviour,"  says  Fulke — 
the  great  champion  of  Protestantism — "seeing  our  Saviour 
hath  promised  that  never  a  prick  (i.  e.,  a  vowel  point)  of 
the  Law  shall  perish,  we  may  understand  His  words  of 
all  the  prophets,  for  we  do  not  receive  the  vowels  from 
some  later  Jews,  but  from  the  Prophets  themselves."  Such, 
also,  is  the  comment  of  the  distinguished  Hebraist,  Hugh 
Broughton,  as  well  as  that  of  the  great  Piscator,  (who 
says:  "It  appears  from  this  text  (Matt.  v:i8),  that  the 
Holy  Bible,  in  the  time  Christ,  had  the  points,  and  that 
these  points  were  confirmed  by  our  Saviour." 

3.  The  Bible  asserts  the  inspiration  of  the  very  vowel- 
points,  because  it  says,    "Words    which    the  Holy  Ghost 


46  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

teacheth" — the  words.  "Words,"  notice,  not  "half-words" 
— not  wind-swept  skeletons,  which  wait  to  be  filled  in  by 
human  conjecture.  Consonants  are  not  words,  and  if 
men  can  make  vowels,  they  can  also  make  consonants,  and 
so  make  their  own  words,  and  so  make  a  Bible.  Nor 
does  the  minuteness  of  the  vowel-point  impugn  the  argu- 
ment, since  God,  who  can  engrave  an  Aleph,  can  equally 
engrave  a  Kibbuts  or  a  Sheva.  Exod.  xxxii:i6,  says  that 
He  did  so. 

4.  The  inference  is  unavoidable  from  Deut.  xxvii  :8, 
where  the  command  is  given  to  write  "very  plainly" — 
literally  to  cut  each  mark  in  deep.  This  must  include  the 
vowel-marks,  as  well  as  consonants,  for  on  them,  most  of 
all,  the  plainness  must  depend.  There  are  innumerable 
passages  where,  without  the  vowel-points,  no  man  alive 
can  tell  the  meaning  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  nor  know  the  mind 
of  God. 

Rome  opposes,  with  all  her  most  virulent  force,  the 
vowel-points,  because,  once  rid  of  these,  she  makes  the 
Church  the  arbiter — the  umpire  and  interpreter.  The  Church 
puts  in  the  points. 

This  anti-scriptural  and  arrogant  assumption  of  exclusive 
rights  in  the  monopoly  of  truth — the  very  doctrine  of  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees  who  sit  in  Moses'  seat — was  never 
voiced  more  boldly  than  by  that  bulwark  of  the  papacy. 
Morinus,  who  does  not  hesitate  to  put  it  that  "the  reason 
why  God  ordained  the  Scriptures  to  be  written  in  this 
ambiguous  manner  (i.  e.,  without  the  Points),  is  because 
it  is  His  will  that  every  man  should  be  subject  to  the 
judgment  of  the  Church,  and  not  to  interpret  the  Bible  in 
his  own  way.  For  seeing  that  the  reading  of  the  Bible  is 
so  difficult,  and  so  liable  to  various  ambiguities,  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  thing,  it  is  plain  that  it  is  not  the  will  of 
God  that  every  one  should  rashly  and  irreverently  take  upon 
himself  to  explain  it ;  nor  to  suffer  the  common  people  to 
expound  it  at  their  pleasure;  but  that  in  those  things,  as 
in  other  matters  respecting  religion,  it  is  His  will  that  the 
people  should  depend  upon  the  priests." 

Counter  to  this  entire  principle  of  Rome,  Protestantism 
stands  for  the  points,  and. the  more,  that  she  is  driven  to 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  47 

substitute  for  an  Infallible  Church,  an  Infallible  Something 
—a  Bible. 

"The  Bible,"  says  Protestantism,  "is  independent  of  all 
men — of  all  tradition,  of  all  councils,  of  all  decretals  and 
canons.  It  needs  no  Pope ;  nor  college  of  scarlet-f rocked 
cardinals ;  no  Ecumenical  Assembly  to  endorse  its  claim." 

"The  Church,"  says  Protestantism,  "is  built  on  the 
Bible,  and  not  the  Bible  on  the  Church."  The  Church  is  to 
be  shaped  to  the  Bible,  not  the  Bible  to  the  Church.  The 
Church  is  to  return  to  the  Bible,  not  the  Bible  to  the  Church. 
The  Church  is  not  the  keeper  of  the  Bible,  but  the  Bible 
keeps  the  Church.  The  only  barrier  against  backsliding ;  the 
only  hope  in  reform ;  the  only  power  to  heal,  that  is  vital, 
is  the  Book  of  Books,  and  the  conviction  that  its  every 
utterance  and  every  pen-stroke  is  Divine. 

5.  A  fifth  and  final  indirect  but  powerful  testimony  of 
the  Scripture  to  the  vowel-points,  is  in  the  marginal  notes 
which  the  Hebrew  brings  with  it — the  so-called  Keri  Ve- 
Kcthib.  The  Keri  in  the  margin  nowhere  changes  the 
vozvels  of  the  text.  The  margin  everywhere  testifies  to 
the  vowel-points  as  authentic.  It  is  the  consonants  in 
every  instance  that  are  changed. 

The  Vowel-points  then,  according  to  the  Scripture  as  well 
as  the  universal  Jewish  tradition,  are  an  integral  part  of 
the  text — of  the  very  handwriting  of  God.  The  Kab- 
balah (Sohar  I;  15,  b.)  asserts  that  "the  Vowel-points  pro- 
ceeded from  the  same  Holy  Spirit  who  indited  all  the  sacred 
Scriptures." 

Suppose  one  to  take  the  opposite  ground,  that  the 
consonants  alone  were  inspired  and  the  vowels,  a  human 
invention,  were  afterward  introduced.  Now  see  the  diffi- 
culties : 

When?  At  what  moment  were  they  introduced?  Such 
a  change  as  the  pointing  over — from  Genesis  to  Malachi — 
of  an  unpointed  Bible  must  have  produced  among  Christians, 
as  well  as  Jews,  little  less  than  an  earthquake. 

Press  the  argument  further :  The  Points  are  in  exist- 
ence. They  are  here.  Not  only  do  we  have  books  written 
and  printed  without  them,  but  we  have  books  with  them, 
the  Great  Temple  Copy,  of  which  these  shorthand,  ephemeral 
copies  are  briefs.  Where  did  the  points  come  from  which 


48  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

are  to-day  upon  the  MSS.  considered  as  authority ?  Those 
MSS.  which  regulate  criticism  and  are  the  unswerving 
conservators  of  the  true  text?  The  points  upon  those 
MSS,  whence  did  they  come? 

Press  the  argument  still  further.  It  is  said  that  the 
points  were  invented  by  the  Masorites  because  we  get 
them  from  the  Masorites,  but  the  question  echoes  and  still 
echoes,  "Whence  did  they  get  them?"  Press  the  argument 
home  to  the  wall.  It  is  said  that  the  points  were  invented 
by  the  Masorites.  It  is  said  so,  because  Levita  first  said 
so.  But  what  did  he  know  about  it?  Nothing.  He  stood, 
as  Buxtorf  shows,  alone — a  single  man  against  the  senti- 
ment and  history  of  his  whole  nation.  His  speculation  was 
built  rashly  up  on  a  conjecture  like  a  blind  man's  dream — 
upon  a  fancy,  rootless  as  a  mushroom  growth.  There  were 
several  schools  of  the  Masorites.  Which  school  invented 
the  points?  Why  did  not  other  schools — the  jealousy  of 
scholars  is  proverbial — observe,  dissent,  dispute  them? 
How  explain  the  miracle  of  a  complete  unanimity  and  un- 
exceptional subjection  to  the  school  of  Tiberias,  if  school 
of  Tiberias  it  was  ?  How  account  for  it  that  childish,  doting 
Rabbins  of  Tiberias,  "men  more  mad  than  Pharisees,  be- 
witching with  traditions  and  bewitched,  blind,  crafty, 
raging,"  should  have  shown  such  nice  Divine  composure 
and  exactness  as  appears  in  all  the  adaptations  of  the 
points?  "Look  at  the  men,"  says  Dr.  Lightfoot  in  his 
masterly  response  to  Walton's  Prolegomenon.  "Read  over 
the  Jerusalem  Talmud,  and  see  there  how  R.  Judah,  R.  Cha- 
ninah,  R.  Hoshaia,  R.  Chija  Rabba  and  the  rest  of  the 
grand  Masorites  behave  themselves.  How  earnestly  they 
labor  at  nothing ;  how  childishly  they  handle  serious  dis- 
putes, how  much  froth,  venom,  smoke — pure  nothing  in 
their  disputations.  Then  if  you  can  believe  the  pointing 
of  the  Bible  came  from  such  a  school."  become  a  Jew 
yourself,  "believe  also  their  Talmuds.  The  pointing  of  the 
Bible  savors  of  the  work  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  and  not 
of  that  of  lost  and  blinded  and  besotted  men." 

Allowing  the  question  to  be  narrowed  down  to  the  Masor- 
ites, let  us  consider  a  little  more  closely  who  or  what  were 
these  men  who  by  the  merest  freak  of  conjecture  are  sup- 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  49 

posed  to  be  the  authors  of  so  great  a  work  as  giving  vow- 
els to  the  lifeless  consonants  that  stood  for  Hebrew  words. 

1.  Admitting  that  there  was,  at  any  time,  at  Tiberias,  or 
anywhere  else,  a  body  of  Jews  having  in  hand  the  fixing 
of  the  Divine  text  in  a  permanent  form — then  confessedly 
those  Jews  would  be  men  to  whom  the  Word  of  God  had 
never  been  committed  as  a  trust,  as  it  had  been  to  their 
fathers  before  their  rejection:  men  who  had  no  interest  in 
or  title  to  it  or  right  to  deal  with  it.  Castaways  from  the 
Covenant  they  were ;  whose  "house  had  been  left  to  them 
desolate."  Men  blinded  they  were,  without  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  guide  them — with  a  veil  upon  their  hearts — utterly  in- 
capable of  understanding  the  Scriptures,  the  letter  of  which 
they  held  in  their  hands,  or  of  finding  Christ  in  them.  Was 
God  likely  to  give  such  men  the  power  to  put  soul  into 
the  dead  carcase  of  the  letter?  Would  He  inspire  such 
men  to  supplement  and  rectify  an  inadequate  and  therefore 
faulty  text,  left  to  them  by  "the  finger  of  God?"  Would 
He  teach  them  to  invent  and  add  what  prophets  and  apostles 
had  been  ignorant  of  from  the  foundation  of  the  world? 

2.  These  Masorites,  whoever  they  were,  were  men  so  far 
from  fit  to  interpret  the  mind  of  God  in  the  Scriptures  or 
even  to  approximate  a  knowledge  of  the  truth,  that  they  were 
desperately  engaged  in  opposing  and  denying  the  claims 
of  Christ  in  the  Gospel  to  their  own  confusion  and  final 
destruction.  Their  business  was  the  turning  of  the  truth  of 
God  into  a  lie ;  how  then  could  they  do  aught  to  preserve 
it? 

3.  The  Masoretic  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  points 
is  contradicted  by  the  very  points  themselves.  The  gloss 
upon  Isa.  53  which,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  a  suffering  Messiah 
had  been  put  upon  it,  by  the  Chaldee  paraphrast,  and  in 
which  the  sufferings,  instead  of  being  endured  by  Christ, 
were  represented  as  inflicted  by  Him  on  His  enemies — 
this  gloss,  of  centuries  before,  was  well  known  and  accepted 
by  these  Rabbins  of  Tiberias,  why  then,  if  they  put  in  the 
points,  did  they  not  point  the  text  to  correspond  with  their 
interpretation?  Surely  they  would  have  done  this,  had  they 
had  control  of  the  pointing.  They  did  not  do  it  because  the 
points  were  already  there  2000  years  before  their  day  and 


50  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

though  the  points  were  against  them  they  did  not  dare  to 
change  them — nor  could  they  change  them  had  they  dared. 

4.  These  Tiberian  rabbins,  the  Masorites,  were  men  un- 
der the  special  curse  of  God — His  vengeance  on  account 
of  the  shedding  of  the  Blood  of  His  own  dear  Son.  To 
no  such  men  did  God  commit  the  integrity  of  the  "Lively 
Oracles."  As  well  commit  it  to  the  hands  of  Satan  him- 
self. 

5.  These  Masorites  were  men  of  the  densest  ignorance  as 
to  anything  outside  their  traditions — as  appears  from  such 
stories  as  that  in  which  they  make  Phyrrhus  King  of  Epirus 
in  Greece  help  Nebuchadnezzar  against  Jerusalem  and  other 
like  nonsense. 

Of  all  the  foolish  fables  ever  invented,  this  is  the  most 
absurd  and  incredible,  that  obscure  and  ignorant  men  of 
Tiberias — men  about  whom  we  know  nothing — men  the 
creations  of  credulity  itself — phantoms  like  the  false  Dream 
sent  to  Agamemnon, — in  a  time  of  grossest  ignorance,  and 
living  among  a  people  abandoned  to  error  and  themselves 
blinded  under  the  curse  of  God,  should — without  any  con- 
sultation with  Babylonian  or  any  Jewish  schools — all  at  once 
find  out  and  carry  to  perfection  a  work  so  great,  so  excel- 
lent, so  incomparable,  so  transcendent  as  the  fixing  for  all 
time  of  a  Divine  authoritative  text  which  had  hitherto  been 
fluctuating  and  mutable — that  they  should  do  this,  and  that 
the  whole  world,  Jewish  and  Christian,  without  a  single  de- 
murrer or  dissenting  voice,  should  receive  it,  implies  a 
miracle  so  portentous,  so  impossible,  so  self-contradicting, 
that  to  believe  it  requires  one  to  empty  his  brains  out.  Were 
I  convinced  that  the  pointing  of  my  Hebrew  Bible  depend- 
ed upon  such  men  as  the  Masorites,  I  would  shut  it  up  in 
despair  of  ever  knowing  its  contents.  "He  who  reads  with- 
out the  points,"  says  Rabbi  Isaac,  "is  like  a  man  who  rides 
a  horse  axaXiroi  without  a  bridle,  to  be  carried  whither 
he  knows  not."* 

Without  the  vowel-points  as  Whitfield  has  sug- 
gested it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  different  words 
written  with  the  same  consonants.  Take  the  word 
n?an,      ps     jg:I)  which  by  a   change   in   the  vowels   and 

*See  along  this  line  of  argument,  Owen  on  the  Vindication  of  the 
Hebrew  Text. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  51 

daghcsh,  may  be  read  in  125  different  ways.  Take  again 
the  case  of  the  conjugation  of  the  verb,  in  which  the  Kal, 
Piel  and  Pual  are,  so  far  as  the  consonants  are  concerned, 
precisely  alike  and  are  to  be  distinguished  only  by  the  vowel- 
points.  The  Kal  and  the  Piel  are  active;  the  Pual  is  pas- 
sive. The  word  fj^p  without  the  points  is  either  '"he 
killed."  or  "he  was  killed"  with  no  way  to  determine  which. 
In  the  future  tenses  it  would  be  even  worse ;  for  example  in 
the  word  npD,  where  the  Kal,  the  Niphal,  the  Piel,  the 
Pual,  the  Hiphil  and  the  Hophal  without  the  vowels  are  the 
same.  So  that  six  out  of  the  seven  conjugations  of  the  verb 
without  the  vowels  are  precisely  alike.  Thus  the  copiousness, 
variety  and  exquisite  accuracy  claimed  for  the  shades  of 
meaning  in  the  Hebrew  verb  are  gone  and  there  remains 
only  perplexity  and  confusion. 

Another  argument  for  the  antiquity  and  inspiration  of 
the  points  may  be  drawn  from  the  irregularities  in  form 
and  grammar  which  occur,  and  which  would  never  have 
been  left  in  the  text  had  Masorites  or  any  other  human 
experts  had  the  pointing  of  the  text.  Take  one  example 
which  must  suffice  for  all.  Had  the  vowels  been  put  in 
by  the  Masorites,  they  would  never,  with  their  technical 
and  finical  regard  for  the  small  points  of  grammar,  have 
left  Daniel  to  address  King  Belshazzar  in  the  feminine  in- 
stead of  the  masculine  form.  Daniel  probably  addressed  the 
effeminate  king  in  that  way — surrounded  as  he  was  by 
women  and  perhaps,  like  Sardanapalus,  more  or  less  dressed 
like  one  and  posing  like  one  in  his  dissolute  feast — in  order 
to  suggest  his  shame  as  well  as  guilt  while  he  pronounced 
his  terrible  and  petrifying  doom. 

Vowels  are  the  life  of  a  language.  They  are  to  the 
consonants  what  the  soul  is  to  the  body.  It  is  significant 
that  a  vowel  begins  and  a  vowel  ends  the  Greek  alphabet 
taking  in  all  the  letters  between  them.  Nor  is  it  less  signifi- 
cant that  Christ,  the  Eternal  Word,  exclaims :  "I  am  the 
vowels :  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the 
ending,  the  first  and  the  last — I  speak  everything." 

Vowels  are  the  life  of  a  language — the  consonants  are 
not.  The  consonants  are  simply  stops  upon  the  breath; 
but  the  breath — Ah,  E,  O, — Ye,  Ho,  Vah — is  primal,  the 
soul.     As  says  the  Kabbalah  the  oldest  and  most  eminent 


52  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Jewish  authority,  "Consonants  are  the  body  and  the  vowel- 
points  the  soul ;  the  consonants  move  with  the  motion  and 
stand  still  with  the  resting  of  the  vowel-points  just  as  an 
army  moves  after  its  sovereign."  "Vowels,"  says  Dr.  Gill, 
"are  the  life  and  soul  of  language.  Letters  without  them  are 
indeed  dead  letters ;  the  consonants  stubborn  immovable 
things ;  they  cannot  even  be  pronounced  without  vowels 
which  are,  as  Plato  says,  'their  necessary  bond.' ':  That 
therefore,  the  Hebrew,  the  first  and  most  perfect  of  all, 
God's  own  peculiar  language,  should  be  without  them,  is  in- 
conceivable. 

No  written  language  can  be  read  without  the  vowels. 
I  once  went  down  into  the  Hebrew  quarter  of  New  York 
City  to  convince  myself  of  this.  It  is  easy  enough  to  read  an 
unpointed  text  when  one  knows  the  pointed  text  thoroughly, 
as  readers  in  the  synagogues  who  are  instructed  can  do. 
But  to  seize  the  exact  word  and  sense  without  the  vowels 
is  impossible,  and  to  teach  little  children  and  beginners  in 
a  language,  without  them,  is  impossible.  Even  our  simple 
English  could  not  be  taught  to  little  children  by  the  con- 
sonants alone.  Three  consonants  can  stand  for  at  least  a 
dozen  words;  four  can  stand  for  more  than  fifty.  Think 
of  the  strain  upon  the  memory.  Think  of  the  nice  exercise 
of  judgment  in  taking  in  the  scope  of  the  connection. 
Think  of  the  fine  instinct  necessary  to  discern  the  inten- 
tion of  the  writer  and  so  to  choose  the  vowels  that  exactly 
make  the  words  that  reproduce  his  thought ;  and  then  im- 
agine that  the  complicated  Hebrew  could  be  preserved  and 
taught  and  understood ;  and  God's  thought, — no  merely 
human  thought — perfectly  transmitted,  by  jangling  con- 
sonants without  connecting  links — Crcdat  Judacus  Apclla! 

To  all  these  arguments  may  again  be  added  the  care  of 
the  Jews  in  copying.  The  original  manuscript  written  by 
Moses  himself,  must,  in  the  course  of  time,  have  perished — 
although  that  "Book  of  the  Law"  (see  2  Kings  xxii:8), 
seems  yet  to  have  existed  in  King  Josiah's  day.  Copies 
therefore,  would  be  called  for  at  a  very  early  date.  Ac- 
cordingly we  find  rules  of  the  severest  stringency  laid  down 
for  the  copyist.  The  Temple  Manuscript  ruled  Supreme. 
When  a  manuscript  showed  traces  of  age  and  of  use,  it 
was  burned  with  the  extremest  care  and  solemnity.  Be- 
fore this  it  was  copied  by  official  scribes. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  53 

These  scribes  were  to  write  with  a  specially  prepared 
black  ink  upon  a  new  parchment  from  the  hide  of  a  clean 
animal.  Every  skin  must  contain  a  certain  number  of 
columns  of  prescribed  length  and  breadth.  The  number  of 
lines  must  be  the  same  in  each  column ;  the  number  of  words 
the  same  in  each  line.  No  word  must  be  written  till  the 
copyist  has  first  inspected  it  in  the  example  before  him  and 
pronounced  it  aloud.  Before  writing  the  name  of  God  he 
must  wash  his  pen.  All  redundancy  or  defect  of  letters  must 
be  scrupulously  avoided.  Prose  must  not  be  written  as 
verse,  nor  verse  as  prose ;  and  when  the  copy  has  been  com- 
pleted it  remains  for  examination  and  approval  or  rejection 
thirty  days.  From  all  this  who  can  fail  to  be  persuaded  of 
the  accurate  transmission  of  the  very  "jots"  and  "tittles" 
of  the  law  ? 

"But  the  synagogue  copies  have  been  and  are  unpointed. 
Why?" 

One  reason,  perhaps,  was  and  is  the  labor  saved  in  copy- 
ing. The  same  consideration  leads  us  in  writing  to  em- 
ploy abbreviations. 

A  reason  more  serious  was  that  of  the  Cabalists  and 
other  allegorizers,  who  wished  to  make  the  Word  of  God 
confirm  their  comments  and  traditions ;  that  they  might 
give  their  own  interpretation  to  the  text.  "When  the 
letters  are  not  pointed,"  says  R.  Menachem,  "they  have 
many  faces  (or  interpretations),  but  when  they  are  pointed 
they  have  only  one  sense  according  to  the  punctuation." 
The  unpointed  text  allowed  the  rabbins  opportunity  for  free 
thought,  which  opportunity  they  embraced,  "making  the 
Word  of  God  of  none  effect  through  their  traditions."  In 
sympathy  with  this  same  spirit  human  nature  loves  to 
monopolize  whatever  good  may  be  and  the  more  valuable  the 
good,  the  more  exclusive  and  determined  the  monopoly. 
Nor  are  hierarchies  by  any  means  an  exception.  The 
rabbins  then  and  learned  men  would  favor  an  unpointed  text 
which  gave  them  scope  for  the  assumption  of  authority  in 
deciding  what  was  the  text  and  what  must  be  its  meaning. 
This  secured  great  honor,  influence  and  power  for  the 
clergy,  while  the  common  people  were  deprived  of  a  plain 
text  from  which  they  could  draw  their  own  conclusions, 
and  which  they  could  make  their  independent  guide.    These 


54  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

are  the  men  who  "sat  in  Moses'  seat,"  against  whom  our 
Lord  so  severely  inveighs  when  He  says :  "Woe  unto  you 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,  for  ye  shut  up  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  against  men,  for  ye  neither  go  in  your- 
selves, neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are  entering  to  go  in. 
Woe  unto  you  lawyers,  for  ye  have  taken  away  the  key  of 
knowledge.  Ye  entered  not  in  yourselves,  and  them  that 
were  entering  in  ye  hindered." 

In  perfect  accord  with  this  spirit,  we  have  Rome's  vehe- 
ment defence  of  the  Masoretic  pointing  of  the  Hebrew  text. 
As  soon  as  the  notion  of  the  late  invention  of  the  points 
was  broached  by  Elias  Levita,  the  Church  of  Rome  em- 
braced and  endorsed  it  as  an  argument  for  the  uncertainty 
and  unreliability  of  the  Old  Testament  text ;  the  necessary 
consequence  of  which  uncertainty  must  be  the  setting  up 
of  the  Church  in  place  of  the  Scripture,  as  the  infallible 
authority,  and  Arbiter  of  truth.  "Scripture,"  says  Rome, 
"has  no  authority  but  what  it  receives  from  the  Church." 
Joannes  Morinus,  in  his  preface  to  an  edition  of  the  Septua- 
gint  printed  at  Paris,  A.  D.  1628,  does  not  hesitate  to  state 
this  proposition  in  the  plainest  words :  "The  doctrine  of 
salvation  is  by  Divine  Institution  made,"  he  says,  "to  de- 
pend upon  the  authority  of  the  Church.  A  remarkable  evi- 
dence whereof,  amongst  others,  is  the  perpetual  uncertainty 
and  ambiguity  of  the  Hebrew  text  by  reason  of  the  absence 
of  the  points."  Dr.  John  Owen,  defending  the  inspiration 
of  the  points  and  speaking  of  Morinus,  says,  "He  makes 
the  Hebrew  tongue  to  be  a  very  nose  of  wax  to  be  turned 
by  men  which  way  they  please  and  so  to  be  given  of  God 
on  purpose  that  men  might  subject  their  consciences  to  an 
infallible  church.  In  nothing  do  they,  the  Papists,  so  pride 
themselves  as  in  the  conceit  of  the  novelty  of  the  Hebrew 
punctuation,  whereby  they  hope  with  Abimelech's  servants, 
utterly  to  stop  the  wells  and  fountains  from  which  we 
should  draw  our  soul's  refreshment."  If  the  Hebrew  points 
are  not  an  original  part  of  the  text,  and  if  they  were  not 
ab  origine,  before  ever  a  Masorite  was  born,  then  the  text 
is  indeed  uncertain  nor  can  any  man  be  instructed,  reformed, 
confirmed  or  established  by  an  uncertainty.  If  the  points 
are  not  authentic  they  are  of  no  value  and  we,  as  honest 
men,  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  them. 

If  the  points  were  put  in  by  the  Masorites  on  a  tradition 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  55 

of  sounds  afloat  in  the  air  for  thousands  of  years,  it  was 
done  by  a  miracle.  It  was  indeed,  considering  who  these 
Masorites  were,  Satan  inspired  to  make  scripture! 

Moreover:  it  is  as  easy  to  believe  that  the  consonants 
came  floating  down  in  the  air  by  tradition  and  that  their 
characters  were  invented  as  to  believe  this  of  the  points. 
"But,"  one  says,  "the  consonants  existed,  they  are  here!" 
So  did  the  points  exist,  they  are  equally  here.  "But  Jerome 
who  finished  the  Vulgate  translation  of  the  scriptures  in  the 
year  420  says  nothing  about  the  points !"  No,  and  neither 
do  we.  in  translating,  say  anything  about  them.  We  take 
them  for  granted  and  so  did  he.  Else  why — for  example, 
does  he  say  "You  must  not  read  ")3T,  you  must  be  -sure 
to  read  tar  ?  What  nonsense !  If  there  were  no  points  to 
distinguish  the  words  it  would  be  the  same  as  saying  in 
English,  "You  must  not  read  B  L  K  "black,"  vou  must 
read  B  L  K  "block,"  or  "balk"  or  "bleak"  or  "bloke,"  or 
what  not.  Jerome  had  the  points  as  his  entire  translation 
proves. 

The  Hebrew  text,  as  we  have  it,  came  down  unchanged 
from  Moses.  This  is  clear,  not  only  from  the  fact  that  the 
men  who  deny  the  antiquity  of  the  points  differ  among 
themselves  as  to  when  and  by  whom  the  points  were  put  in 
— whether  in  the  year  A.  D.  500  or  800;  whether  by  later 
or  by  earlier  Masorites,  or  by  Ezra  or  by  some  one  else 
they  know  not  whom.  The  only  thing  they  agree  in  is 
the  denial  of  the  points  as  Divine.  To  us  they  are  Divine 
or  nothing.  The  most  simple,  perfect,  beautiful,  exquisitely 
self  consistent  system  of  punctuation  ever  known  to  man 
was  not  the  invention  of  any  darkened  brain  of  doting 
Masorite ;  nor  was  it  the  invention  of  the  brighter  brain 
of  either  Ezra  or  Moses.  God  shines  through  the  "jots" 
and  "tittles"  of  His  law  as  gloriously  as  through  the 
stately,  square  and  upright  characters  which — like  Heaven's 
windows,  open  out  eternal  lights  and  grandly  represent  the 
most  majestic  language  in  the  world. 

And  yet  again  an  argument — why  do  the  points  exist  at 
all?  Because  they  are  needed.  Nothing  not  needed  sur- 
vives. But,  if  needed  now  they  have  been  needed  from  the 
beginning — each  "jot"  and  each  "tittle,"  why  not? 

No  one  ever  doubted  the  authenticity  of  the  points  until 
Levita,  a  rationalistic  Jew,  surprised  his  nation  with  his 


56  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Massoreth  Ha  Massoreth.  Ludovicus  Cappellus,  a  Protest- 
ant professor  in  Saumur — a  man  unsound  in  his  theology, 
whose  sympathies  were  with  the  Church  of  Rome,  of  which, 
his  son  who  aided  him  was  a  bigoted  member — followed 
up  Levita's  line  of  argument.  The  whole  scheme — exposed 
and  confuted  by  Buxtorf  in  his  Tiberias,  and  condemned 
by  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Reformed  Church — leaves  the 
points  to-day  as  indelible  upon  the  manuscript  as  when  they 
were  put  there  by  the  finger  of  God.  If  any  scritpure  is 
inspired  they  are. 

Nor  is  it  to  any  purpose  whatsoever  that  men  contend 
that  the  points  are  too  numerous  and  too  minute  to  claim 
the  thought  and  finger  of  Almighty  God.  He,  to  whom  the 
wonders  of  the  microscope  are  as  infinite  as  those  of  astron- 
omy :  He  who  does  not  disdain  to  count  the  hairs  of  our 
head;  to  fix  a  thousand  fascets  in  the  eye  of  an  insect,  or 
to  guide  the  circulation  of  a  million  animalcules  in  a  drop 
of  water,  can  make  and  count  and  fix  vowel-points  as  easily 
as  He  can  make  volcanoes,  or  fix  the  number  of  the  constel- 
lated and  unconstellated  stars.  If  He  has  magnified  His 
Word  above  all  His  name,  i.  e.,  above  all  His  other  man- 
ifestations, then  He  has  magnified  it  in  the  minute  as  well 
as  in  the  magnificent — in  the  "jots"  and  "tittles"  as  well 
as  in  the  hewing  of  the  tables  of  the  law.  In  bringing 
forward  this  argument  our  opponents  therefore,  "like 
Goliath,  carry  a  sword  which  cuts  off  their  own  heads." 

The  entire  contention,  as  to  the  points  comes  to  this :  Is 
the  Bible  the  Infallible  Rule  and  Ultimate  Appeal  in  religion, 
or  is  Tradition  the  Rule:  or  the  Church  of  Rome  the  Rule: 
or  fluctuating  Opinion — what  men  call  "consciousness" — 
the  Rule?  The  contention,  then,  is  not  one  of  quibbles,  it  is 
one  of  life  and  death.  The  men  who  hold  the  literal  inspira- 
tion of  everything  in  scripture  are  safe.  The  men  who  seek 
to  undermine  or  weaken  that  foundation  will  find  that  "the 
beginning  of  strife"  with  Almighty  God  "is  as  when  one 
letteth  out  water."  The  Bible  itself  is  lost  before  that 
strife  has  been  ended. 

The  whole  question  of  the  vowel-points  resolves  to  this. 
Does  God  knozv  anything  about  them?  Is  He  ignorant  of  the 
shape  or  the  value  of  a  Kametz  or  a  Seghol?  If  not,  if  He 
knows  that  they  are  in  the  text,  He  equally  knows  how 
they  came  there.     And  as  scripture  everywhere,  in  every 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  57 

word  is  fixed  by  these  vowels  the  vowels  themselves  must 
be  authentic.  However,  placed  where  they  are,  they  were 
placed  there  by  God.  That  is  all  that  we  mean  and  that  is 
just  what  we  mean  and  what  we  stand  for  when  we  con- 
tend unflinchingly  and  ad  cxtremum  for  the  vowel-points 
as  inspired. 

THE    HEBREW    SQUARE    LETTER. 

Men,  to  get  rid  of  the  vowel-points  have  gone  further 
and  denied  the  forms  of  the  consonants  as  well.  They  have 
claimed  that  the  square  character — the  most  majestic,  regal 
and  superb  of  texts,  is  but  an  innovation  upon  an  earlier 
ugly,  uncouth  and  barbaric  text  styled  the  Samaritan. 

To  this,  it  may  be  replied : 

1.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  Law  of  God  given  to  Shemites 
would  first  be  written  in  the  language  of  the  accursed  race 
of   Canaan. 

2.  There  is  no  hint  of  a  change  of  characters,  from 
Samaritan  to  square,  at  or  before  the  time  of  the  captivity. 
If  such  a  change  there  was,  it  must  have  been  known  to 
both  Nehemiah  and  Ezra  who  give  us  no  hint  of  it. 

3.  Justin  Martyr  asserts  that  Moses,  under  a  divine  inspir- 
ation, wrote  his  history  in  Hebrew  letters ;  he  does  not  say 
"Samaritan  letters,"  although  he  himself  was  a  Samaritan. 
He  also  says  that  out  of  the  ancient  books,  written  in 
Hebrew  letters,  the  Septuagint  or  70  elders  made  their 
translation. 

4.  The  Hebrew  letters  of  the  alphabet  found  in  consecu- 
tion as  the  headings  of  the  verse  of  Ps.  CXIX  and 
elsewhere  correspond,  as  Dr.  Gill  has  pointed  out,  with  the 
things  which  they  signify ;  as  N  signifies  an  ox,  and  looks 
like  the  head  and  horns  of  one ;  3  signifies  a  house  and 
looks  like  it ;  "J  a  door  of  which  it  describes  the  lintel  and 
post.  The  Samaritan  characters  look  like  nothing  and  sig- 
nify nothing.  The  Hebrew  letters  are  the  originals  which 
give  names  to  all  others. 

5.  The  Hebrew  has  five  double  forms  of  letters,  i.  e., — one 
form  for  the  middle,  and  another  form  of  the  same  letter 
for  the  end  of  the  word.  These  are  found  throughout  the 
whole  Bible  while  the  Samaritan  has  no  final  letters  and 
nothing  to  correspond  with  them. 


58  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

6.  The  words  "Holiness  to  the  Lord"  on  the  mitre  of  the 
high-priest  were  never  written  in  Samaritan  nor  did  any 
Jew  ever  question  whether  they  were  written  in  the  square 
letter  or  Hebrew. 

y.  The  Hebrew  character  is  the  grandest,  most  majestic, 
most  expressive,  most  symmetrical  and  elegantly  formed 
character  in  the  world.  God  wrote  it.  It  speaks  its  Divine 
origin  in  its  frank  and  upright  form  as  contrasted  with  all 
other  circular  and  serpentine  and  crooked  alphabetic  writ- 
ings. The  character  itself  is  the  sublime  and  solemn  auto- 
graph of  God.  Straight-forward,  perpendicular,  reliable, 
consistent,  unmistakable,  invariable,  without  the  shadow  of 
turning,  it  never  has  changed  and  it  never  will.  Forever,  O 
Lord,  Thy  Word  is  settled  in  heaven. 

To  all  this,  the  unbroken  and  unanimous  belief  of  the 
whole  Hebrew  nation,  an  objection  has  been  brought  from 
certain  alleged  Samaritan  coins  dug  up  in  Judea.  It  is  said 
of  these  coins  that  they  were  more  ancient  than  the  captivi- 
ty and  that  the  inscriptions  upon  them  in  the  Samaritan 
characters  are  a  proof  that  the  Samaritan  character  was  the 
character  in  use  among  the  Jews  before  the  captivity. 

It  is  easy,  in  reply,  to  say: 

i.  There  is  no  evidence  whatsoever  that  these  coins  ex- 
isted before  the  times  of  the  Maccabees. 

2.  They  had  Greek  on  one  side  and  so-called  Samaritan 
on  the  other.  The  alleged  Samaritan  looks  as  much  like 
Hebrew  as  it  does  like  anything  else.  Moreover  there  is 
not  one  of  these  coins  which  by  experts  like  Ottius,  Reland, 
Spanheim  and  others  has  not  been  found  to  be  spurious. 
Men  capable  of  writing  spurious  Gospels  were  capable  of 
inventing  spurious  coins. 

3.  There  were  plenty  of  coins  in  silver  and  brass  with 
inscriptions  in  the  square  character ;  coins  which  dated  back 
to  Solomon  and  back  of  him  to  David.  The  Jews  in  the 
Talmud,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  Gill,  affirm  this.  R.  Azariah  says 
that  he  saw  in  Mantua  a  silver  coin  having  on  the  one 
side  "King  Solomon,"  in  the  holy  tongue  and  square  letter, 
and  on  the  other  side  the  form  of  the  temple.  Equal 
testimonies  have  been  given  by  Hottinger,  Wagenfeil,  Sel- 
den  and  others. 

In  Isa.  ix  :6  a  final   D  is  found  in  the  middle  of  a  word. 


J 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  59 

If  Isaiah  was  written  in  Samaritan,  how  account  for  that 
final  letter  which  the  Samaritan  lacked? 

Again :  The  letters  of  the  word  Jehovah  written  verti- 
cally in  the  square  letter  make  the  human  figure  and  even 
in  the  dawn  of  Genesis,  fore-shadow  incarnation.  Did  God 
mean  to  fore-shadow  it?  Then  He  wrote  in  the  Hebrew 
square  letter,  for  the  Samaritan  is  incapable  of  any  such 
thing.  That  God  meant  something  by  it  the  Jews  have 
always  believed,  for  they  early  discovered  the  resemblance 
and  called  the  Tetragrammaton  a  mystery.  It  is  a  mystery 
and  stamps  the  Hebrew  characters  divine.  Oh  for  light 
upon  the  light  of  the  letter  that  in  God's  light  we  may 
see  light ! 


Go  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 


SHEOL : 
THE  PRINCIPLE  AND  TENDENCY  OF  THE  REVI- 
SION EXAMINED.* 

"  'The  wicked  shall  return  to  Sheol.'  And  in  Hell  he  lift  up  his 
eyes,  being  in  torments." — Ps.  9:17,  Luke  16:23. 

I  have  set  before  myself  a  simple,  straightforward  task — 
to  translate  into  the  language  of  the  common  people  and 
in  lines  of  clear,  logical  light  the  principles  involved  in  the 
new  version  of  the  Bible  and  just  in  what  direction  it  tends. 
This  thing  is  needed.  Nothing  at  the  present  moment  is 
more  needed  nor  so  needed,  for  I  am  convinced  that  the 
principle  at  the  root  of  the  revision  movement  has  not  been 
fairly  understood,  not  even  by  many  of  the  revisers  them- 
selves, who,  charmed  by  the  siren-like  voices  addressed  to 
their  scholarly  feeling,  have  yielded  themselves  to  give  way, 
in  unconscious  unanimous  movement,  along  with  the  wave 
on  which  the  ship  of  inspiration  floats  with  easy  and  ac- 

*This  discourse  was  preached  June  7,  1885,  soon  after  the  Revised 
Bible  first  appeared.  It  is  reprinted  now  with  later  comments, 
simply  because  the  principles  involved  remain  the  same  and  will 
apply  to  the  "American"  or  any  other  similar  Revision  made  upon 
the  unsound  basis  of  a  change,  not  of  the  English  only,  but  of  the 
original  Greek  itself,  by  substituting  Tischendorf's  X  backed  by 
the  doubtful  and  imperfect  Vatican,  for  the  purer  text  of  earlier 
and  better  MSS.  in  the  possession  of  the  Protestant  and  Greek 
Churches :  and  to  which  the  Greek  Church,  by  the  imprimatur  of 
her  patriarchs  unswervingly  adheres.  The  old  textus  receptus,  in 
spite  of  Westcott  and  Hart  and  their  disciples,  is  the  purest  Greek 
text  in  the  world.    This  age  will  invent  nothing  better. 

And  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society  is  about  to  replace  one  of  its  editions  of  the  Greek  Testa- 
ment, now  run  out  in  Athens,  by  a  reprint  of  the  text  of  the  Greek 
Church  bearing  the  imprimatur  of  the  Patriarch  Constantine  E. 
The  preface  of  that  Greek  Testament  says ; 

"This  edition  has  aimed  at,  as  nearly  as  possible,  an  exact  repro- 
duction of  the  oldest  ecclesiastical  text  and  particularly  of  the  text 
of  the  Church  of  Constantinople."  This  Greek  is  that  on  which  the 
authorized  Version  of  161 1  was  based,  the  translators  being  in  touch 
with  Constantinople  from  whence  the  Codex  A  in  the  British 
Museum  came,  presented  as  it  afterward  was  to  Charles  I  by  Cyril 
Lucas,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  61 

celerating  motion,  toward  rebound  and  crash  upon  the 
rocks. 

Men  have  been  talking  about  certain  texts — they  have 
been  criticizing  changes  on  the  surface,  but  not  one  man  in 
10,000,  certainly  not  one  in  1,000,  of  the  masses  I  mean, 
sees  sharply  to  the  ganglionic  centre  of  that  poison  which 
works  out  so  many  plague-spots  to  the  open  day. 

To  kill  the  principle  is  to  kill  the  whole  thing;  and  this  at 
last  is  the  issue,  the  only  point  worthy  of  labor.  The  ques- 
tions and  the  quibbles  about  isolated  texts,  headings  of 
chapters  and  divisions,  are  comparatively  incidental.  What 
lies  under  them  and  determines  them  at  last  is  the  grand 
question  as  to  the  whole  theory  and  fabric  of  the  new  higher 
critical  system  as  applied  to  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  reflected  in  its  influence  from  that  upon  the  Old 
— a  system  which  time,  as  I  must  believe,  is  sure  to  demol- 
ish from  its  Ttpoorov  ip'evSot  its  false  premise,  as  the  first 
brick  standing  in  a  row,  and  falling  on  its  neighbor,  pros- 
trates all  the  rest. 

That  a  few  changes  might  be  made  in  both  Testaments, 
for  the  better,  no  man  pretends  to  deny ;  but  that  all  the 
learned  twaddle  about  "intrinsic  and  transcriptional  prob- 
ability," "conflation,"  "neutral  texts,"  "the  unique  position 
of  B,"  the  Vatican  manuscript,  and  behind  it  the  "primitive 
archetype,"  i.  e.,  text  to  be  conjectured,  not  now  in  existence ; 
and  finally  the  flat  and  bold  and  bad  assertion  that  "we  are 
obliged  to  come  to  the  individual  mind  at  last," — that  all 
this  so-called  science  shutting  right  up  to  one  "group"  of 
manuscripts,  at  the  head  of  which  are  two — both  of  them, 
X  and  B,  as  the  drift  of  the  proof  goes  to  show,  of  a  com- 
mon, perhaps  questionable,  Egyptian,  origin — one  of  them 

discovered  in  1859,  and  first  published  in  October,  1862, 
little  more  than  twenty  years  ago — the  other  the  Vatican 
Codex,  supposed  to  be  earlier,  first — and  behind  that  for- 
sooth, to  supply  its  defects,  conjecture,  cloudland,  where 
divine  words  float  on  the  air, — that  all  this  theory  is  false 
and  moonshine  and,  when  applied  to  God's  word,  worse 
than    that ;    I    firmly   believe. 

But  you — suppose  you  believe  so — why  should  you  in- 
terest yourself?  Sauve  qui  pent — why  not  save  yourself 
and  leave  things  to  go  as  they  may? 


62  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Because  I  am  a  minister  of  Christ,  just  as  responsible 
to  God  as  any  man  or  minister  on  earth  ;  because  my  busi- 
ness is  to  preach  and  to  defend  this  book,  and,  shake  this 
book  beneath  me,  I  am  gone.  "If  the  foundations  be  de- 
stroyed what  can  the  righteous  do?" 

But  why  not  speak  before?     Why  now? 

Because  I  have  been  waiting  four  years  for  other,  abler 
men  to  speak ;  because  my  knowledge  and  my  convictions 
have  been  but  slowly  maturing,  and  because  there  was  not 
special  reason  before,  such  as  the  appearance  of  the  whole 
Bible  revised  now  suggests. 

But  you  have  already  done  enough  in  what  you  have  said 
to  unburden  your  mind;  why  not  let  the  subject  there  stay? 

Reply — We  never  have  done  enough  until  we  have  struck 
the  last  needed  blow.  The  story  of  Joash  and  the  arrows  is 
here  in  point :  •  "And  Elisha  said  unto  the  king,  'Smite 
upon  the  ground.'  And  he  smote  thrice  and  stayed.  And 
the  man  of  God  was  wroth  and  said,  thou  shouldest  have 
smitten  five  or  six  times ;  then  hadst  thou  smitten  Syria  till 
thou  hadst  consumed  it ;  whereas  now  thou  shalt  smite  Syria 
but  thrice." 

We  have  never  done  enough  until  we  dealt,  to  what 
we  find  to  be  error,  the  coup  de  grace. 

A  man  must  make  it  his  choice  either  to  have  God  upon 
his  side  or  men.  I  am  confident  that  if  I  did  not  say  what  I 
am  about  to  say  I  should  be  silent  from  the  fear  of  man,  and 
I  prefer  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  God. 

I  know  that  the  Revision  up  to  this  moment  controls  and 
has  controlled  the  Reviews  of  this  country,  and  has  had  it  in 
its  hands  to  make  and  lead  opinion,  as  it  would,  the  last 
ten  years. 

And  yet  I  am  persuaded  that  truth  always  carries  such  a 
terrible  weight  in  its  favor  that  none  of  its  defenders  need 
hesitate  to  speak.  A  sword  in  the  hands  of  a  child  is  might- 
ier than  a  straw  in  the  hands  of  a  giant,  and  no  amount  of 
earnestness  can  be  condemned  when  pleading,  on  straight 
lines,  the  cause  of  God.  "To  employ  soft  words  and 
honeyed  phrases,"  says  Dr.  Thornwell,  "in  discussing  ques- 
tions of  everlasting  importance ;  to  deal  with  errors  that 
strike  at  the  foundations  of  all  human  hope  as  if  they  were 
harmless  and  venial  mistakes  ;  to  bless  where  God  disap- 
proves, and  to  make  apologies  where  He  calls  us  to  stand 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  63 

up  like  men  and  assert,  though  it  may  be  the  aptest  method 
of  securing  popular  applause  in  a  sophistical  age,  is  cruelty 
to  man  and  treachery  to  Heaven.  Those  who  on  such  sub- 
jects attach  more  importance  to  the  rules  of  courtesy  than 
they  do  to  the  measures  of  truth  do  not  defend  the  citadel, 
but  betray  it  into  the  hands  of  its  enemies.  Charity  for  the 
persons  of  men,  whatever  their  opinions,  is  a  Christian 
virtue,  but  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  opinions  themselves 
fall  under  its  scope.  On  the  contrary,  I  apprehend  that 
love  for  Christ,  and  for  the  souls  for  whom  He  died,  will 
be  the  exact  measure  of  our  zeal  in  exposing  the  dangers 
by  which  men's  souls  are  ensnared." 

Sentiments  like  these,  my  brethren,  add  their  impetus  to 
my  conviction.  Rather  than  keep  silent  from  the  fear  of 
any  consequences  that  may  come  to  me,  I  must  prefer  to 
fall  into  the  hands  of  God. 

And  indeed  there  is  pressure  upon  me  to  speak.  We  are 
told  in  the  Book,  which  is  in  the  balance  to-day,  that  "the 
priest's  lips  should  keep  knowledge."  That  does  not  mean 
"keep  it  in,"  but  preserve  it  and  translate  it  into  plain  and 
honest  idiom,  and  show,  in  their  relation,  facts  and  principles 
which  are  at  any  time  astir. 

The  fact  and  principle  astir  just  now  is  fundamental.  It 
is  not  only  the  question  of  doctrines  taught  by  the  book, 
but  of  the  book. 

And  not  only  of  the  book,  but  of  the  unity  of  an  English 
speaking  Protestantism.  The  French  Protestants  have  three 
different  versions — those  of  Osterwald,  Martin,  Segond.  In 
their  churches  and  homes  sometimes  one  is  read,  sometimes 
another.  A  while  ago  I  was  worshipping  in  a  French  Church 
in  Paris.  The  minister  read  from  one  version,  I  looked  over 
another.  At  the  bottom  of  the  page  I  find  pencilled,  "Not 
two  words  in  five  alike !"  Imagine  the  influence  of  such  a 
variation  on  our  united  front  against  the  infidel  and  Rome. 
Study  its  influence  upon  French  Protestantism  in  the  past 
and  now.  Consider  the  force  of  the  objection,  "You  have 
different  Bibles  and  neither,  or  none  is  exact."  Consider 
the  effect  upon  our  children  to  have  nothing  settled ;  to  feel 
that  Holy  Scripture  is  a  nose  of  wax  to  be  twisted  hither 
and  thither.  Consider  the  effect  of  all  this  upon  what  is, 
alas !  too  infrequent  just  now,  the  committing  to  heart  of  the 
very  words  of  the  Book  as  the  binding  dictate  of  God. 


64  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"Our  authorized  version  is  the  one  religious  link  which 
at  present  binds  together  ninety  millions  of  English-speaking 
men  scattered  over  the  earth's  surface."  Imagine  the  effect 
of  lightly  loosening  upon  these,  the  power  and  pressure  of 
that  mighty,  holy  bond !  Better  a  few  archaisms,  a  few 
quaint,  perhaps  inadequate  expressions,  than  such  an  un- 
foreseen but  logical  result  as  that. 

When  it  comes  to  the  Bible,  our  heirloom,  the  charter  of 
our  personal  hopes  for  eternity,  we  all  are  interested,  and 
may  well  be  interested,  and  the  more  that  the  great  work 
in  this  and  all  divine  directions  has  never  been  exclusively 
accomplished  by  men,  however  gifted  and  however  honored, 
and  most  justly  honored,  who  sit  in  theological  chairs;  but 
also  by  the  help  of  plain  pastors — of  men  at  rough  work — 
of  men  in  personal  contact  and  dealing  with  souls  as  well 
as  the  book — of  men  like  Athanasius,  Augustine  and  Wick- 
liffe  and  Huss  and  Calvin  and  Boston  and  Edwards. 

So  that  we  all  have  an  interest  and  are  all  responsible  for 
an  influence,  and  have  all  a  very  ample  and  appropriate 
apology  for  giving  thought  to  this  question. 

Hitherto  I  have  spoken  of  the  New  Testament  revision 
and  that  is  indeed  my  main  point.    I  have  shown — 

I.  That  it  is  impracticable,  unelastic,  uncongenial,  and 
from  its  many  needless,  disconcerting  changes — more  than 
6,000  in  all — a  vexatious  English. 

II.  That  it  is  a  defective,  unskillful  translation;  a  transla- 
tion which  mutilates  the  book  by  its  unauthorized  omis- 
sions, and  which  unsettles  souls  by  its  multiplied  notes  of 
discredit,  a  translation,  too,  which  lacks  those  marks  of 
spiritual  apprehension  and  of  feeling  which  are  the  suprem- 
est  quality — so  patent  and  so  glowing  in  what  we  have  now. 

The  principle  of  translation  adopted  by  the  Revisionists, 
viz. :  to  render  the  same  Greek  word  by  precisely  the  same 
English  word,  in  each  case,  was  false  and  mistaken — a 
principle  which  cannot  possibly  be  carried  out  and  has  ar- 
rayed against  it  all  philosophy  as  well.  In  contrast  to  this 
narrow,  unadaptable,  pedantic  notion  the  old  Translators, 
recognizing  the  shades  of  meanings  in  words  and  the  place, 
just  there,  where  tact  and  knowledge  and  spiritual  discern- 
ment and  taste  must  come  in,  laid  down  another  and  far 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  65 

more  scholarly  principle — "We  have  been  especially  care- 
ful," they  say,  "and  have  even  made  a  conscience,  not  to 
vary  from  the  sense  of  that  which  we  had  translated  before, 
if  the  word  signified  the  same  thing  in  both  places,  but 
there  be  some  words  that  be  not  of  the  same  sense  every- 
where." 

Principle  how  broad,  my  Brethren,  how  judicious !  For 
we  must  remember  that  to  translate  is  not  to  construe.  Take 
the  first  line  of  Virgil's  Eneid — Arma  virumque  cano,  Trojae 
qui  primus  ab  oris.  A  school  boy  tones  it  off  and  quite 
correctly,  "Arms,  man  and  I  sing — of  Troy  who  first  from 
shores."  That  is  exact,  if  exact  means  identical,  but  it  is 
not  a  translation.  Virgil  is  poetry.  There  is  no  poetry  in  the 
school  boy's  literal  words.  Virgil  gives  you  a  picture — the 
school  boy  gives  you  no  picture.  Virgil  opens  with  a  grand 
idea — the  school  boy  gives  you  no  idea,  but  only  words. 

To  translate  then  is  not  simply  to  know  a  language  and 
construe  it  literally.  A  translator  must  have  the  Geist,  as 
the  Germans  say,  of  a  language ;  the  soul;  and  more,  must 
be  one  with  the  spirit  that  breathes  the  great  original  words. 

This  men  forget  now-a-days.  The  reformers  made  every- 
thing of  it.  A  natural  man,  they  maintained,  cannot  perceive 
the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  nor  can  a  mere  scholar. 
Spirituality  is  the  supremest  requisite.  Whatever  else  a 
man  is,  or  is  not,  he  must  be  spiritual  to  translate  the  things 
of  the  Spirit. 

Just  this  explains  the  secret  of  the  German  Bible.  Luther's 
translation,  considering  the  time,  the  books,  the  helps  he 
had,  is  almost  supernatural.  I  am  prepared  to  believe  that 
in  some  true  sense  it  was.  "His  choice  of  words  in  render- 
ing the  Hebrew,"  says  Dr.  Gottleib,  a  learned  Jewish  scholar, 
"shows  a  kind  of  inspiration."  "Luther  guessed  at  mean- 
ings which  have  only  in  later  years  been  found  the  true 
ones."  Heine  says  of  Luther.  "He  translated  the  Bible  from 
a  language  which  had  ceased  to  exist  into  one  which  had 
not  yet  arrived.  Our  dear  Master's  thoughts  had  not  only 
wings  but  hands;  his  faults  have  been  more  useful  to  us 
than  the  virtues  of  a  better  man.  How  Luther  got  the 
language  into  which  he  translated  the  Bible  is  to  this  hour 
incomprehensible."  Mendelssohn  says  of  Luther,  "Wo  er 
schlecht  iibersetzt  hat,  hat  er  dochvortrefflich  verdeutscht," 


66  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Where,  in  translating,  he  has  blundered  he  has  made  in- 
imitable German. 

But  Luther's  blunders  are  next  to  infinitessimal  and  so  are 
those  of  our  ancient  translators.  Their  English  is  mahog- 
any, takes  a  polish,  and  bears  rubbing,  in  comparison  with 
which  the  English  of  the  present  day,  for  such  a  purpose, 
is  both  bass  and  pine-wood. 

III.  That  the  revised  New  Testament  is  based  upon  a 
new,  uncalled  for,  and  unsound  Greek  text — that  mainly 
of  Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort,  which  was  printed  simultan- 
eously with  the  revision  and  never  before  had  seen  light, 
and  which  is  the  most  unreliable  text  perhaps  ever  printed 
— one  English  critic  says,  "the  foulest  and  most  vicious  in 
existence."* 

Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort's  New  Testament  comes  to  us 
bound  in  two  volumes.  The  second  volume  an  apology  and 
introduction.  I  intend  to  follow  that  second  volume  straight 
through  and  make  its  consecutive  points.  I  cannot  give  you 
324  pages,  but  I  can  give  you  the  analysis — the  heads — and 
you  can  go  and  get  the  book  and  verify  them  for  yous- 
selves.f 

The  points  are  these. 

I.  Out  of  all  available  manuscripts,  say  1,100,  N  (the 
Siniatic)  and  B  (the  Vatican)  stand  far  above  the  rest. 

II.  B  the  Vatican  stands,  for  authority,  far  above  K  — 
is  older  than    N- 

III.  K  and  B,  or  rather  B    N,  stand  for  some  earlier 


♦Since  then  we  have  another  newer  text,  that  of  Nestle  and 
Weidner  based  again  on  Tischendorf  and  incorporating  the  defects 
of  Westcott  and  Hort;  bracketing  as  it  does  Mark  16:9-20,  and 
actually  discarding  John  8:1-12.  The  margins  of  my  own  copy  of 
this  Testament  of  Nestle  &  Weidner  are  blackened  with  the  pen- 
cilled words  "omission,"  "great  omission" — "omission  of  7  words" — 
"omission  of  9  words" — "omision  of  4  words" — "omission  of  3 
words" — "uncalled  for  transposition" — "change  of  statement  by 
change  of  verbal  form,"  &c,  &c.  What  may  be  said  of  Westcott 
&  Hort  applies  therefore  to  Nestle  &  Weidner — the  principle  and 
spirit  are  the  same. 

fPublished  by  Harper  &  Bros.,  1882,  and  marked** 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  67 

manuscript  not  now  in  existence,  perhaps  an  actual  auto- 
graph. 

IV.  B  is  the  nearest,  earliest  link  with  that  actual  auto- 
graph. 

V.  Since  B  is  full  of  omissions — leaving  out  as  it  does  I. 
and  II.  Timothy — Titus — Philemon — Hebrews  from  chap- 
ter IX.  on,  and  the  whole  of  Revelation,  besides  multitudes 
of  minor  omissions — 2,877  words  in  all — we  are  forced  back, 
to  supply  such  omissions,  finally,  to  "Conjectural  emenda- 
tion," "Critical  instinct" — the  individual  mind  at  last. 

Now  I  will  prove  my  own  words  and  make  each  of  these 

points. 

I.  "  K  and  B  stand  far  above  all  other  manuscripts."  In- 
trod.  page  210. 

"They  were  written,  in  parts,  by  the  hand  of  the  same 
scribe."     Introd.  page  213. 

"They  were  written  in  the  same  generation  and  probably 
in  the  same  place."    Page  214. 

"They  are  no  less  excellent  when  taken  all  alone  without 
the  other  manuscripts  than  when  supported  by  them."  Page 
219. 

"What  makes  them  so  superior  is  their  internal  evidence — 
that  of  which  only  a  critic  can  judge."    Page  219. 

"They  must  be  accepted  until  this  internal  evidence  be 
found  untrue."    Page  225. 

"They  never  can  be  safely  rejected."    Page  225. 

II.  As  N  and  B  stand  far  above  all  others,  so  B  stands 
far  above    N — is  older  than   X    Page  210,  §285. 

Trains  of  manuscripts  where  B  leads  off  without  k  are 
equally  good  with  those  which  have  X,  *.  e.,  B  plus  is 
equally  good  with  K,  B  plus.    Pages  227,  238. 

This  is  not  so  with  trains  in  which  N  leads  off,  i.  e.,  N 
plus  is  not  equal  to  X  B  plus.     Page  229. 

The  peculiar  readings  of  B,  found  nowhere  else,  do 
commend  themselves  on  their  own  merits.     Pages  230-238 

§317. 

III.  B  and  N  start  from  an  earlier  archetype — some  lost 
autograph  manuscript  not  in  existence.  Now  let  me  quot* 
verbally  page  247,  248:     "The  ancestries  of  both  manu- 


68  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

scripts  having  started  from  a  common  source  not  much  later 
than  the  autographs,  justifies  a  strong  initial  presumption 
that  the  text  of  their  archetype  is  preserved  in  one  or  other 
of  them." 

Again,  page  287:  "Whatever  may  be  the  ambiguity  of  the 
evidence  in  particular  passages  the  general  course  of  future 
criticism  must  be  shaped  by  the  happy  circumstance  that  the 
fourth  century  has  bequeathed  to  us  two  manuscripts,  of 
which  even  the  less  incorrupt  must  have  been  of  exception- 
al purity — which  manuscripts  rise  into  greater  pre-eminence 
the  better  the  early  history  of  the  text  becomes  known." 

IV.  B  is  earlier  and  much  superior  to  X,  and  indeed  is 
separated  from  the  original  autograph  of  the  Apostles  by 
very  few  links — pages  248,  249, — "by  very  few  links,  in- 
deed." 

This  is  proved: 

1st.  "By  the  fact  that  B  is  an  Uncial" — is  written  in  capi- 
tal letters. 

2d.  "It  is  proved  by  tradition." 

3d.  "It  is  proved  by  the  omissions  in  B" — criticism  is  the 
art  of  getting  down  to  the  bone.  Whatever  manuscript  adds 
anything  B  does  not.  "The  manuscript  which  omits  most  is 
the  purest,  because  less  clogged  with  extraneous  matter." 
Page  235. 

"It  is  on  the  whole  safer  for  the  present  to  allow  for  a 
proneness  on  the  part  of  the  scribe  of  B  to  drop  petty  words 
not  required  by  the  sense."    Page  236. 

That  is  the  whole  argument  on  which  is  founded  the  new, 
higher  critical  system. 
N  and  B  are  above  all  the  others.     B  is  above  X. 

B  with  its  omissions  is  nearest  to  the  first  and  simon-pure 
autograph. 

Where  omissions  are  to  be  supplied  in  B  the  door  is  open 
for  "conjectural  emendation" — "personal  discernment  here 
would  seem  to  be  the  surest  ground."  Personal  instincts 
will  be  trustworthy  in  the  degree  of  education  and  of  criti- 
cal experience.    Quotations  from  pages  65,  71. 

NOW,  AGAINST  THIS  WHOLE  THEORY,  SIM- 
PLE AS  IT  IS  AND  PLAUSIBLE,  WHICH  PLACES 
"B"  FIRST,  FOREMOST  AND  INFALLIBLE  ARBI- 
TER, I  HAVE  TO  REPLY. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  69 

I  will  oppose  B  the  Vatican  MS.  first,  foremost,  alto- 
gether, simply  because  it  is  the  Vatican  MS.,  because  I  have 
to  receive  it  from  Rome,  because  I  will  have  no  Bible  from 
Rome,  no  help  from  Rome  and  no  complicity  with  Rome ; 
because  I  believe  Rome  to  be  an  apostate.  A  worshipper  of 
Bread  for  God ;  a  remover  of  the  sovereign  mediatorship  of 
Christ ;  a  destroyer  of  the  true  gospel,  she  teaches  a  system 
which,  if  any  man  believes  or  follows  as  she  teaches  it,  he 
will  infallibly  be  lost — he  must  be. 

Notice  what  is  omitted  in  the  Vatican  MS. — Timothy  and 
Titus,  Imputation  see  verse  18.  Hebrczvs,  The  doctrine  of 
the  Blood-Atonement  once  for  all.  The  Apocalypse,  Christ 
coming  to  catch  up  the  true  Church  and  to  deal  with  the 
Mother  of  Harlots. 

On  any  ground  I  will  not  pin  my  faith  on  Rome.  I  do 
not  know  what  she  has  got.  No  man  knows  how  many 
omissions  she  herself  has  made  in  what  she  has  got.  I  will 
not  take  my  Bible — not  the  bulk  of  it — from  her  apostate, 
foul,  deceitful,  cruel  hands.  "Timeo  Danaos  et  dona 
fcrentes" — I  fear  the  Latins  bearing  presents  in  their 
hands. 

And  with  good  reason  for: 

1st.  As  to  B's  being  an  Uncial,  so  are  four  others — so 
are  the  two  English  MSS.,  A  and  D. 

As  for  A  (British  Museum)  on  Drs.  Westcott  and 
Hort's  own  testimony,  it  "stands  in  broad  contrast  to  both 
X  and  B."  And  "it  stands  quite  alone  in  some  manifestly 
right  readings."  It  is  probably  the  oldest  as  it  is  the  most 
reliable  having  been  in  the  hands  of  the  Greek  Church 
from  time  immemorial  and  is  the  base  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment authorized  by  the  Greek  Church — the  purest  text 
of  all. 

As  for  D  (Cambridge),  the  same  self-betrayers  admit 
that  "the  text  of  D  presents  a  truer  image  of  the  form  in 
which  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts  were  most  widely  read  in 
the  third  and  probably  a  great  part  of  the  second  century 
than  any  other  extant  Greek  MS."     Introd,  p.  149.* 

Here,  then,  are  the  two  great  English  Uncials,  both  of 
which  are  undoubtely  older,  one  of  which  A  is  in  contrast 

*The  five  great  N  Uncials  are  A,  B,  C,  D  and  .  C,  in  Paris,  is 
a  palimpsest. 


yo  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

to  n  and  B,  and  is  alone  in  some  manifestly  right  read- 
ings ;  the  other  of  which,  D,  takes  us  back  to  the  best  form 
of  the  text  in  the  second  century,  i.  c,  two  centuries  before 
the  earliest  pretensions  made  for  the  Vatican, f  and  that 
they  admit.  But  more  than  this,  the  Cursives,  i.  e.,  MSS. 
written  in  small  running  characters  are  original  sources,  as 
well  as  the  Uncials.  No  MSS.  are  autographs.  These 
cursive  copies  represent  originals.  Why  not?  No  reason 
why  not.  Everybody  admits  that  a  cursive  may  be  even, 
in  some  cases,  a  better  authority  than  any  uncial.  Why 
not?  The  foundation  of  the  received  text  of  the  Apocalypse 
was  a  cursive  marked  I. 

This  is  strenuously  insisted  upon  in  the  Preface  to  the 
Greek  Testament  issued  under  the  2$PAri2,  the  Seal  of 
Constantine  E  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  in  1904. 

That  Preface  says :  "This  edition  purposes  as  its  end 
the  reproduction  of  the  most  ancient  text  according  to  the 
Ecclesiastical  tradition  and  especially  as  handed  down  by 
the  Church  of  Constantinople.  Having  such  an  end  in 
view,  the  book  is  prepared,  not  upon  the  basis  of  any  printed 
editions  whatsoever,  nor  upon  the  basis  of  critical  editions 
which  have  made  use  of  the  Great  Codices  written  in  capi- 
tal letters,  but  upon  the  basis  of  those  copies  which  are 
commonly  neglected  and,  to  make  use  of  a  Scriptural  expres- 
sion, "disallowed  of  the  builders ;" — upon  the  basis  of  the 
Byzantine  copies  many  of  which  are  written  in  small  letters 
and  letters  calling  for  minute  inspection."  Translation  from 
the  Preface  to  the  Testament  of  the  Greek  Church  the  text 
of  which  agrees  in  every  point  with  that  of  our  received 
and  authorized  version.    Why,  when  men  are  so  valorously 

tProfessor  Hug  labored  to  prove  that  the  Vatican  was  written  in 
the  early  part  of  the  4th  century,  but  Bishop  Marsh  puts  it  two 
centuries  later.  Home's  Introduction,  Part  I,  Chap  III.  Probably 
both  A  and  D  are  older  than  B  and  unspeakably  purer.  D  was 
found  by  Beza  in  the  Monastery  of  St.  Irenaeus  at  Lyons  and  repre- 
sents a  Western — possibly  an  Albigensian  (Protestant)  Genealogy: 
Greek  on  the  left  hand  page  and  Latin  on  the  right,  the  Latin  trans- 
lation is  older  than  that  of  Jerome.  Dr.  Scrivener  says:  "It  may 
well  have  been  brought  into  Gaul  by  Irenaeus  and  his  Asiatic  com- 
panions A.  D.  170."  It  contains  without  a  break  Mark  16:9-15  and 
John  8-12  passages  discounted  by  the  Revision. — See  Scrivener's 
Codex  Bez  as  Cantabrigiensis  Intr.  ix.,  p.  xlv.  See  also  Home, 
PL  I.,  Ch.  III.,  Sec.  II.,  §4. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  71 

contending  for  the  Supreme  authority  of  the  Vatican  MS, 
does  it  not  occur  to  some  "critic"  that  it  would  be  well  to  go 
back  to  the  Greek  Church  for  MSS  as  well  as  to  Rome? 

Just  so  a  Version  or  ancient  translation  may  be  a  source. 
The  versions,  it  is  admitted  by  critics,  have  been  "too  much 
neglected." 

And  once  more  the  Fathers.  Suppose  St.  Augustine 
quotes  Mark  ix:44,  46,  48,  just  as  we  have  them:  "Where 
their  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched."  That 
shows  that  in  his  day  at  least  the  three-fold  statement  was 
regarded  as  the  Word  of  God. 

B  then  cannot  be  Emperor.  A  and  D  oppose  it.  The 
cursives  oppose  it.  The  Greek  Church  opposes  it.  The  ver- 
sions oppose  it.  The  fathers  oppose  it.  1,100  documents  op- 
pose it. 

But  tradition!    B  is  said  to  be  older. 

Well,  it  may  be  older,  because  less  trustworthy,  less  used, 
and  so  not  worn  out. 

Or  it  may  not  be  older.  It  is  first  mentioned,  anywhere, 
in  1475,  sixty  years  after  Huss  and  Savonarola  were  burned, 
ten  years  before  Luther  was  born,  not  fifty  before  the  Ref- 
ormation. That  is  a  pretty  young  document  to  claim  to  be 
lord  over  1,100  documents,  many  of  which  may  have  been 
then,  for  all  that  we  know,  a  thousand  years  old. 

"Oh,  but  it  is  written  in  great  capitals,  and  it  has  divi- 
sions into  paragraphs  such  as  documents  had  in  Eusebius* 
time." 

Yes,  and  what  is  there  to  prevent  men  from  imitating  a 
manuscript  of  Eusebius'  time,  and  writing  it  large  and  for 
a  purpose? 

Besides,  who  knows  anything  about  the  Vatican  manu- 
script? Its  first  collation,  in  1669,  by  Bartolocci,  now  in 
Paris,  was  confessed  to  be  imperfect,  and  that  was  published 
100  years  after  Calvin  and  Luther. 

The  next  was  by  another  Italian,  Mico,  in  1725.  A  tran- 
script made  for  Bentley,  an  Englishman,  who  wished  to 
edit  a  Greek  Testament.  Imagine  that.  A  Roman  Catholic 
writes  off  a  true  and  correct  New  Testament  for  a 
Protestant  to  publish. 

The  next  information  we  get  is  in  1838.  The  history  of 
this  edition  is  "strange  and  obscure."     It  did  not  receive 


72  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

the  approval  of  Rome,  and  nobody  knows  whether  it  was 
a  true  copy  or  not. 

In  1845  Dr.  Tregelles,  armed  with  a  letter  from  Cardinal 
Wiseman  went  to  Rome  with  the  deseign  of  seeing  that 
manuscript.  After  much  trouble  he  did  see  it.  "Two  pre- 
lates were  detailed  to  watch  him,  and  they  would  not  let 
him  open  the  volume  without  previously  searching  his 
pockets  and  taking  away  from  him  ink  and  paper.  Any 
prolonged  study  of  a  certain  passage  was  the  signal  for 
snatching  the  book  hurriedly  away.  He  made  some  notes 
upon  his  cuffs  and  finger  nails."* 

in  1867  Teschendorf,  by  permission  of  Cardinal  Anto- 
nelli,  undertook  to  study  the  Vatican  Codex.  He  had 
nearly  finished  three  Gospels  when  his  efforts  to  transcribe 
them  was  discovered  by  a  Prussian  Jesuit  spy.  The  book 
was  immediately  taken  away.  It  was  restored  again, 
months  later,  by  the  intervention  of  Vercellone  for  a  few 
hours.  In  all  Teschendorf  had  the  manuscript  before  him 
forty-two  hours  and  only  three  hours  at  any  one  time,  and 
all  but  a  few  of  those  hours  were  spent  on  the  Gospels ; 
and  yet,  he  says,  "I  succeeded  in  preparing  the  whole  New 
Testament  for  a  new  and  reliable  edition,  so  as  to  obtain 
every  desired  result." 

Every  desired  result  in  forty-two  hours — all  but  two  or 
three  of  them  spent  on  the  Gospels  alone. 

Every  desired  result  in  three  hours  hurried  glancing 
through  146  pages  of  an  old  and  stained  and  mutilated 
manuscript  written  on  very  thin  vellum,  in  faded  ink,  with 
its  letters  throughout  large  portions  touched  and  retouched, 
bearing  marks  of  a  very  peculiar  treatment  of  the  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul,  and  confessed  to  have  received  some  correc- 
tions from  the  first  and  the  filling  up  of  certain  lacunae 
(blank  spaces)  from  the  beginning. 

That  is  the  tatter  of  rags  which  is  held  up  before  us, 
between  us  and  the  sun,  through  the  lacunae  of  which 
critics,  forsooth,  are  to  conjecture  a  spectral  original  read- 
ing. That  is  the  theory  and  that  is  the  apex  and  end  of 
the  theory — "conjectural  emendation"  consciousness  as  a 
test  of  what  God  has  spoken — "critical  instinct"  "the  ring 


♦"Story  of  the  Manuscripts." 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE.  73 

of  genuineness"  to  borrow  the  phrases  of  Drs.  Westcott 
and  Hort — "What  I  like  to  read  and  confess." 

But  I  am  not  done.  One  more  point.  The  Vatican  must 
be  the  purest  because  of  omissions!  We  have  cut  things 
down  to  the  bone.  To  criticize  is  to  cut.  Whatever  manu- 
script adds  anything,  the  Vatican  does  not.  Retrenchment, 
not  contribution,  is  her  forte.  The  manuscript  which  omits 
most,  which  has  least  of  God's  word,  is  the  best  because 
the  least  clogged  with  extraneous  matter.  See  Westcott  and 
Hort  Introd.  page  235.  Let  me  quote :  "The  nearer  the  doc- 
ument stands  to  the  autograph  the  more  numerous  must  be 
the  omissions  laid  to  its  charge." 

To  all  this  we  maintain  not  only  denial,  but  assert  just 
the  opposite  thing. 

1.  Omissions  are  what  may  be  expected  from  Rome — 
Rome  has  had  every  opportunity  to  make  the  omissions — to 
tear  off,  for  instance  Hebrew  IX  to  XIII — and  all  the 
omissions  are  straight  in  her  line. 

2.  The  principle  laid  down  is  nonsense.  Take  Israel  in 
the  captivity.  The  Ark  was  gone — Aaron's  rod  was  gone — 
the  Pot  of  Manna  was  gone — the  Tabernacle  curtains  were 
gone.  These  things  had  been  left  in  the  path  of  bad  prog- 
ress— first  the  Curtains,  then  the  pot  of  Manna,  then 
Aaron's  rod,  then  the  Ark — relics  of  their  apostasy  all  the 
way  down. 

History  is  against  Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort.  The  further 
back  you  go,  if  you  go  rightly,  the  more  you  get  of  any 
single  document  or  ordinance  given  and  settled  of  God. 

But  I  am  not  done.  Grant  the  principle,  "the  more 
numerous  the  omissions  the  purer,  until  you  get  back  to  the 
Vatican."  By  that  time  you  have  cut  out  four  and  a  half 
whole  books.  But  you  have  three  or  four  more  conjectural 
manuscripts  back  of  the  Vatican — three  or  four  links.  Cut 
out  three  or  four  books  at  each  link,  and  what  will  you 
have  left  when  you  get  back  to  Peter  and  Paul.  Poor 
Paul !  Poor  old  Calvinist !  All  the  omissions  but  one  are 
out  of  unfortunate  Paul. 

But  I  am  not  done.  Grant  the  principle  and  you  grant 
conjecture  a  source  of  God's  word,  "The  Critical  Conscious- 
ness"— Cloudland — God's  word  afloat  on  the  air. 


74  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Against  all  this  we  oppose,  and  firmly  and  steadily,  the 
principle  of  the  old  translators.  "External,  prima-facie  evi- 
dence is  after  all  the  best  guide."  Call  in  all  your  manu- 
scripts, all  your  data — uncials,  cursives,  versions,  fathers — 
and  that  reading  carries,  which  brings  the  highest  evidence, 
from  numbers,  from  weight,  from  congruity  with  the  rest 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  from  the  open  and  manifest  mind 
of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Again,  we  press  it,  that  the  principle,  Quod  semper,  quod 
ubique,  quod  ad  omnibus,  applied  to  theology,  must  be  ap- 
plied to  the  Bible  as  well.  Call  in  all  your  data,  all  wit- 
nesses from  every  side,  and  then  the  "best  supported  read- 
ing" rules.  Not  N  and  B,  and  not  B,  the  tattered  Roman, 
but  the  best  supported  reading  rules.  The  two  English 
manuscripts  will  here  be  likely  to  come  to  the  front  again 
and  the  Vatican  go  where  it  was — to  the  rear. 

IV.  Now  I  have  laid  a  good  and  solid  and  impregnable 
foundation.  Ever  since  talking  with  a  friend — an  English 
clergyman — rector  of  St.  Peter's  in  the  East  at  Oxford, 
and  a  personal  friend  of  one  of  the  foremost  opponents  of 
the  Revision,  I  have  been  confirmed  in  what  had  before 
been  a  growing  conviction — that  the  Revision  movement, 
dating  from  the  finding  of  Teschendorf's  K,  unconsciously 
to  most,  but  consciously  to  the  Unitarian — to  the  Messrs. 
Vance  Smith,  Robertson  Smith,*  etc. — liberal  members  of 
the  New  Testament  Company,  was  running  steadily  in  one 
direction  through  three  points : 

ist.  To  weaken  and  destroy  the  binding  force  of  Inspira- 
tion in  the  very  Words. 

2d.  To  weaken  and  destroy  the  five  Points  of  Grace 
founded  on  "Free  Will  a  Slave." 

3d.  To  weaken  and  destroy  the  old-fashioned  notion  of 
Hell  as  a  place  and  a  state  of  immediate,  everlasting  and 
utterly  indescribable  torment  into  which  impenitent  men  go 
at  once  the  moment  they  die. 

*Prof.  W.  Robertson  Smith,  cashiered  by  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland  was,  however,  a  member  of  the  Old  Testament  Revision 
Company.  Dr.  Geo.  Vance  Smith,  another  member,  was  a  Unitarian. 
It  is  a  significant  fact  that  two  such  men  should  have  been  asked 
to  help  give  us  a  Bible. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  75 

Now  to  prove  these  three  points: 

1st.  The  principle  laid  down  by  Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort 
and  reproduced  from  them  since  in  the  Presbyterian  Re- 
view, tends  straight  and  only  to  weaken  and  to  destroy  the 
binding  force  of  inspiration  in  the  very  words. 

Eight  articles  appeared  in  the  Presbyterian  Reviezv  from 
April,  1881,  to  April,  1885.  They  shook  the  country,  and 
especially  the  Presbyterian  Church.  I  do  not  now  speak  of 
the  ivorst  of  those  articles — of  what  was  written  in  the 
name  and  spirit  of  so-called  ''advanced  thought."  I  speak 
of  what  was  written  in  faint  protest  by  Princeton — of  what, 
under  doubtful,  shifty  and  apologetic  language,  gave  old 
Orthodoxy,  as  to  Inspiration,  clean  azvay. 

I  say  this — I  said  it  in  this  pulpit  two  years  ago — I  said 
it  at  the  Synod's  room  and  was  applauded  for  it — that 
when  Princeton  begins  by  refusing  to  call  Inspiration  an 
"influence,"  and  by  restricting  it  to  "superintendence ;" 
when  Princeton  goes  on  to  deny  that  the  Inspiration  in 
God's  Word  is  the  first  truth  we  embrace,  and  makes  it 
the  last  truth ;  when  Princeton  asserts  that  "the  Inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures  is  not  in  the  first  instance,  a  principle 
fundamental  to  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  nor 
should  we  ever  allow  it  to  be  believed  that  the  truth  of 
Christianity  depends  upon  any  doctrine  of  Inspiration 
whatever" ;  when  Princeton  admits  that  it  is  a  "misappre- 
hension" to  suppose  that  Inspiration  is,  in  its  essence,  "a 
process  of  verbal  dictation,"  or  control  which  God  exercised 
over  the  very  words,  then  we  say  that  this  revamping  of 
the  fundamental  fallacies  of  Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort  gives 
Orthodoxy,  as  to  Inspiration  clean  away.* 

And  when  Princeton  again,  by  another  Professor,  bristles 
up  to  vindicate  the  "rights  of  Reason ;"  when  she  asserts 
that  in  our  criticism  "we  must  treat  the  Bible  just  like  any 
other  writings,"  i.  e.,  "that  the  immediate  testimony  of 
Scripture  to  its  own  Inspiration  is  not  independent  of  criti- 
cism," which  means,  if  it  means  anything,  that  that  testi- 
mony can  be  criticised,  subjected  to  the  "critical  instinct"  of 
Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort ;  when  she  says  that  "the  witness  of 
the  Spirit  cannot  be  a  common  measure  between  minds," 


*Presbyterian  Review,  April,  1881,  p.  226,  227,  232. 


76  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

and  that  "the  doctrine  of  Inspiration  stands  or  falls  with 
the  results  of  critical  investigation,"  then  we  say  that  in  thus 
making  "Reason"  the  ultimate  criterion  and  arbiter  of  a 
Divine  inspiration,  Princeton,  following  the  wake  of  Drs. 
Westcott  and  Hort,  gives  Orthodoxy,  as  to  Inspiration,  clean 
away.f 

For,  to  admit  that  fallen,  erring  man  can  criticise  a  Super- 
natural testimony  is — what  is  it?  To  put  "Reason"  at  the 
bottom  of  faith  instead  of  God's  Word  at  the  bottom  of 
faith.  Is? — what  is  it? — to  make  man  a  critic  of  Scripture 
instead  of  Scripture  a  critic  of  man;  the  sinner  a  judge  of 
the  law,  not  the  object  of  law,  which  condemns  him.  And 
what  is  this  but  to  give  Orthodoxy,  in  point  of  Inspiration, 
away,  and  follow  the  line  of  the  rationalistic  wave,  the  New 
Departure,  which,  prophesied  by  Van  Oosterzee  twenty 
years  ago,  has  swept  through  Scotland,  floating  to  his  death 
its  Robertson  Smith,  and  now  has  us  on  its  tide. 

For  we  hold,  as  fundamental,  as  to  Inspiration  the  self- 
evidencing  light  that  shines  through  ipsissima  verba  the  very 
words — their  native  irradiation,  na.6aypa.cpri  SeortvEvdroS— 
it  is  the  Scripture  itself — the  writing,  not  writer — that  St. 
Paul  says  is  God-breathed. 

We  take  the  ground  that  on  the  original  parchment  every 
word,  line,  point  and  jot  and  tittle  was  put  there  by  God. 

Every  sacred  writing,  every  word  as  it  went  down  on  the 
primeval  autograph  was  God-breathed.  You  breathe  your 
breath  on  a  glass ;  it  congeals.  So  God  breathed  originally, 
Divinely,  out  of  Himself  and  through  Moses,  through  St. 
Paul,  as  through  a  bending  and  elastic  tube  upon  the  sacred 

PaSe- 

And  every  scrap  or  relic  of  that  original  writing  found 

anywhere  in  the  world  (and  God  in  spite  of  men  will  take 

care  of  it  all)   will  shine  wherever  you  find  it  by  native 

irradiation,  by  light  convincing,  overwhelming  and  complete, 

in  glory  all  Divine.      We  do  not   say  every   "conjectural 

emendation"   will   so  shine — in  the  transmission  of   God's 

word  is  no  room  for  "conjectural  emendation" — but  every 

honest  writing  will  so  shine. 

We  take  the  ground,  the  Sun  needs  not  a  critic.    When 

he  shines,  he  shines  the  Sun — and  so  each  word  of  God. 


■^Presbyterian  Review,  April,  1883,  P-  343,  344,  345,  348.  351. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  77 

We  take  the  open  ground  that  a  single  stray  leaf  of  God's 
Word  found  by  the  wayside  by  a  pure  savage — let  it  be  the 
eighth  chapter  of  John  for  instance — that  that  single  stray 
leaf  will  so  speak  to  that  savage,  if  he  can  read  it,  that  if  he 
never  heard  or  saw  one  syllable  of  the  Bible  before,  that 
single  leaf  will  shine  all  over  to  him,  cry  out  "God !"  and 
condemn  him." 

That  is  our  doctrine,  and  that,  the  New  Departure,  led  in 
by  Drs.  Westcott  and  Hort,  and  their  principle  in  the  Re- 
vision, weakens  not  only,  but  kills  and  destroys. 

2.  The  principle  of  the  Revision,  based  on  the  Vatican  and 
critical  instinct,  and  running  through  the  New  Testament 
weakens  and  tends  to  destroy  the  five  points  of  grace  which 
are  founded  on  "free-will  a  slave." 

The  Doctrine  of  Grace  which  Luther  taught  against 
Rome  is  not  that  God  makes  men  able  to  stand,  and  yet  it 
depends  on  themselves  after  that,  to  fall  or  hold  out,  but 
the  Doctrine  is  this — that  that  is  grace  alone  which  inde- 
pendently of  works  or  merits  on  our  part  determines  and 
changes  the  will,  and  "not  only  makes  it  able  to  stand,  but 
guards  against  the  possibility  of  future  failure." 

The  doctrine  founds  upon  the  will  of  God.  "Of  His  own 
will  begat  he  us" — "it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of 
him  that  runneth,  but  of  God  that  showeth  mercy."  In 
other  words  it  founds  upon  free-will  a  slave.  "Grace  is  the 
denial  of  the  sovereignty  and  strength  of  man.  In  his  natural 
condition  man  is  completely  nothing  in  regard  to  spiritual 
life,  and  the  power  that  calls  him  from  that  condition  is  as 
independent  of  his  concurrence  as  that  which  originally 
created  him  out  of  nothing  and  brought  him  into  the 
world."* 

This  was  the  doctrine  and  it  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
Spirit's  work  deep,  deep,  and  deep  in  the  prostration  and  the 
bondage  of  the  human  will.  "Nothing  in  man,"  says  Luther, 
"precedes  grace,  except  his  impotence  and  his  rebellion." 

Such  a  system  as  that  founds  down  below  all  else — all 
faith — all  will  or  want  of  will — on  Jesus  Christ  as  God. 

If  He  is  God  He  can  do  anything,  meet  anything — create 


*Dr.   Thornwell   in   his   articles   upon   the   Invalidity   of   Romish 
Baptism. 


78  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

— renew  the  will — awake  to  righteousness   and   raise  the 
dead. 

The  Revision  weakens  and  removes  the  Deity  of  Christ 
in  many  places — I  will  mention  five: 

John  III:  13 — "The  Son  of  Man  which  is  in  Heaven" — 
the  words  "which  is  in  Heaven,"  living  this  moment  as  the 
Jehovah,  are  in  the  margin  discredited  and  by  Drs.  West- 
cott  and  Hort  are  left  out.f 

Luke  XXIII  -.42 — The  dying  thief's  address.  The  Revised 
Version  bluntly  reads,  "And,  he  said,  'Jesus  remember  me ;'  " 
instead  of  "And  he  said  unto  Jesus,  Lord,  remember  me," — 
».  e.,  it  leaves  out  Kvpis,  Adonai.  Jehovah — leaves  out  his 
Godhood. 

Rom.  IX  :5 — "Of  whom  is  Christ — who  is  over  all  God 
blessed  forever."  The  footnote  drops  out  the  assertion  and 
makes  it  "And  of  whom  is  Christ."  A  full  stop.  Then — 
"He,  who  is  God  over  all" — whoever  He  may  be — "is  blessed 
forever." 

I  Tim.  3-16 — "Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness,  God  was 
manifest  in  the  flesh."  The  Revision  leaves  out  ®£o?  God, 
and  renders  it  "Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness,  He  who 
was  manifest  in  the  flesh," — i.  e.,  the  manifested  One  was 
only  one  phase — the  highest — of  godliness,  the  precise  ren- 
dering for  which  all  the  Unitarians  have  been  contending 
the  last  1,800  years. 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  o?  "He  who"  cannot  be  right  be- 
cause os  the  pronoun,  is  masculine  and  pvdrn'piov  to 
which  it  refers,  is  neuter. 

(2.)  Codex  "A"  of  the  British  Museum  makes  it,  accord- 
ing to  all  testimony  of  300  years,  Qeoi  Dr.  Scrivener,  the 
foremost  English  critic,  says  it  is  ©£05. 

(3.)  Codex  "C"  makes  it  OC.  with  a  cross  mark  inside 
the  O  and  a  line  over  which  denotes  a  contraction. 

(4.)  "F"  and  "G,"  make  it  ©eos—  OC.  with  a  line  over. 

(5.)  All  the  cursives  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles — 254  MSS., 
with  the  exception  of  two  have  Oeoi.  These  copies  were 
produced  in  every  part  of  Ancient  Christendom  and  their 
testimony  may  be  regarded  as  final. 

fThe  American  Revision  retains  this  text,  but  discredits  it  in  a 
foot-note. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  79 

(6.)  Thirty  out  of  thirty-two  of  the  Lectionaries  make 
QeoS. 

(7.)  More  than  twenty  of  the  Greek  fathers  testify  to 
Geo?. 

To  sum  up : 

One  MS. — Five  versions — two  late  fathers  read  o"that 
which" — Eight  read  5. 

Six  MSS — Only  one  Version,  not  one  Greek  father,  read 
6?  Seven  read   oi. 

The  footnote  to  the  American  Revision  shows  the  same 
Unitarian  tendency.  It  reads :  "Of  whom  as  concerning 
the  flesh  is  Christ,  he  who  is  above  all.  God  be  blessed 
forever." 

289  MSS. — Three  Versions  and  more  than  twenty  Greek 
fathers  read  with  the  present  Version  @eoS  Three  Hun- 
dred and  Twelve  read  0£o?.* 

This  sermon  was  preached  June  7th,  1885.  Soon  after, 
I  went  to  Europe  where  I  spent  nearly  three  weeks  in 
studying  this  text  I  Tim.  iii:i6  on  the  great  uncials  "C" 
and  "A."  Through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Albert  Le  Faivre, 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  from  France  to  the  United  States, 
I  had  the  Codex  "C"  for  one  week  under  my  hands  to 
study  the  membrane  with  lenses  and  under  full  sunshine. 
The  parchment  was  also  held  up  by  an  attendant  in  front 
of  the  great  window  so  that  the  light  could  fall  through  the 
palimpsest  page.  I  have  compared  the  Theos  of  line  14 
on  folio  119,  the  one  in  dispute,  with  every  other  Theos  on 
the  page  and,  out  of  the  five,  find  it  the  plainest  one  there. 
All  five  are  written  with  two  letters— OY,  OY,  OC,  OY, 
Ofl  Two  of  the  five  only  have  the  line,  the  mark  of  con- 
traction, above.  One  of  the  two,  the  plainest,  is  the  one  they 
deny.  Three  of  the  five  only  have  the  hair  mark  in  the 
Theta  (©) — one  of  these  three  is  the  one  they  deny.  To 
put  it  more  plainly — the  question  is,  Is  it  OC  "who,"  or 
is  it  &C  with  a  line  over  the  two  letters  and  a  mark  in  the 
O,  God?  It  is  beyond  question  the  latter.  My  eyes  are 
as  good  as  any  man's. 

Again :  I  have  studied  Theos  as  it  appears  on  Codex  "A" 
(British  Museum)  with  its  mark  in  the  Theta  and  its  line 


♦For   the   above   facts   upon    1   Tim.   iii:i6,   I  am   indebted   to 
masterly  Treatise  on  the  subject  by  the  Dean  of  Chichester. 


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THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  81 

adorable  and  undivided  Trinity  is  evidently  and  directly 
referred  to,  and  spelling  the  word  with  a  small  letter,  the 
testimony  of  the  whole  Old  Testament  to  the  Divinity  of 
God  the  Holy  Ghost  is,  as  Mr.  Cardale  has  shown,  greatly 
weakened.  So  too  the  spelling  of  words  referring  to 
Christ  as  "redeemer"  (Job  xix:25);  "lord*'  (Psalm  cx:i), 
with  a  small  letter,  derogates  from  his  Godhood. 

And  weakening  the  Godhead  of  Christ  the  Revision 
weakens  that  which  makes  His  Godhead  needful  to  us  and 
available — the  doctrine  of  the  Bondage  of  the  Will.  If  we 
can  deliver  ourselves  we  do  not  need  God  in  our  flesh  to 
deliver  us.  Free  will  is  not  then  in  every  sense,  as  Luther 
held — a  slave. 

Luke  II:  14  betrays  such  a  tendency.  We  have  in  the 
Authorized  Version,  "Peace  on  earth,  good  will  toward 
men."  The  Revision  changes  this  not  only,  but  gives  in  the 
margin — "Greek,  Peace  on  earth  to  men  of  good  pleasure" 
—or,  as  the  Roman  vulgate  has  it,  "to  good-willing  men" — 
"to  men  who  have  a  good  will."%  For  this,  are  only  five 
manuscripts  headed  by  the  notorious  Vatican.  Against  it 
are  all  other  authorities.  "Peace  to  good-willing  men!" 
What  the  text  asserts  is  that  "God  has  a  good  will  toward 
men."  WThat  the  Revision  asserts  is  that  "men  have  a  good 
will  toward  God"  which  is  pure  Arminianism.  What  man 
on  earth  has  by  nature  a  good  will?  Against  it  stand  all 
the  other  known  authorities — fifty-three  to  five. 

Rom.  VIII  :6  and  7  betrays  again  such  a  tendency.  "For 
to  be  carnally  minded  is  death — because  the  carnal  mind  is 
enmity  against  God."  Here  the  doctrine  is  that  of  total, 
thorough,  universal  depravity — carnally  minded  means  a 
mind  through  and  through  carnal.  But  the  Revision  rend- 
ers it  "For  the  mind  of  the  flesh  is  death — because  the  mind 
of  the  flesh  is  enmity" — i.  e.,  letting  the  mind  run  in  a 
fleshly  direction  leads  to  death,  to  enmity  which  apprecia- 
bly lightens  the  thought  and  makes  another  thing  out  of  it. 

In  this  connection  I  cite  some  passages  from  the  Old 
Testament  which,  to  me,  show  the  same  drift. 

Take  Job  XV:i6 — "How  much  more  abominable  and 
filthy  is  man  which  drinketh  inquity  like  water."  In  the 
Revision — "How  much  less   (clean  than  the  heavens)   one 

|"To  men  of  good  will,"  Douay,  Roman  Catholic,  Testament. 


82  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

that  is  abominable  and  corrupt — a  man  that  drinketh 
iniquity  like  water."  Here  a  standard  proof  text  for  the 
race-depravity  drops  out.  It  is  only  one,  a  man,  any  man 
who  docs  such  and  such  things. 

Take  again :  Jer.  xvii  :o, — "The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all 
things  and  desperately  wicked,  who  can  know  it?"  In  the 
Revision — "The  heart  is  desperately  sick" — makes  man  the 
object  of  a  weak  compassion  where  the  old  translators  made 
him  guilty,  an  object  of  wrath.* 

So  too,  Ps.  110:3 — "Thy  people  shall  be  willing  in  the 
day  of  thy  power."  Subject  the  Hebrew  to  the  closest 
scrutiny,  and  you  cannot  read  with  the  Revision — "Thy 
people  offer  themselves  willingly  in  the  day  of  thy  power." 
That  is  just  what  they  do  not  do,  offer  themselves.  The 
will  of  God  makes  them  willing.  Thy  people  shall  be  "will- 
ingnesses," N'daboth. — The  plural  noun  is  used  to  give  a 
sense  distributive  and  vivid.  They  shall  have  a  new  will — 
every  man  of  them  B'yom  Heleka,  in  the  day  of  thy 
"strength,"  of  thy  might,  thy  sovereign  concentrated 
power. 

The  Revision  not  only  weakens  the  Godhead  of  Christ, 
and  it  not  only  weakens  the  doctrine  of  the  bottomless 
depravity  and  helplessness  of  fallen  man  and  the  enslaved 
condition  of  his  will,  but  it  obscures  the  way  of  salvation 
by  a  simple  instant  act  of  faith  on  Christ. 

John  iii:i5.  This  glorious  Gospel  in  the  Gospel  does  not 
escape  the  sacrilegious  hand.  The  Greek  is  as  plain  as 
A.  B.  C.,  "That  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not 
perish  but  have  everlasting  life."  In  the  Revision  the  words 
"Should  not  perish"  are  left  out  and  the  words  "may  have" 
are  substituted  for  the  positive  "have," — as  if  eternal  life, 
after  the  act  of  faith,  were  in  any  way  conditional  or 
doubtful.  It  weakens  the  thought  of  an  assured  salva- 
tion upon  the  simple  act  of  closing  with  Christ  and  trust- 
ing in  Him. 

Rom.  v:i.  The  Revision  reads  it,  "Being  justified  by 
faith  let  us  have  peace."  The  old  text,  which  is  the  text 
authorized  by    the  Greek  Church  as  well,  declares,    exo/uev 

*The  Am.  Rev.  puts  it  "exceedingly  corrupt,"  which  is  nothing 
like  as  strong  as  "desperately  wicked."  Gesenius  translates  &2ii 
"malignant." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  83 

that  "we  do  have  it."  It  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be- 
lieve on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  not  be  at  peace  with 
God. 

To  these  instances  might  be  added  scores  of  others 
showing  how  ruthlessly  the  Revised  Bible  tampers  with  the 
text — It  leaves  out  two  whole  verses  Mark  ix:44,  46.  It 
leaves  out  the  doxology  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Matt.  vi:i3- 
It  omits  or  by  a  footnote  discredits  nearly  200  words  in 
the  last  three  chapters  of  St.  Luke,  among  them  our 
Saviour's  prayer  for  His  murderers  and  the  story  of  the 
angel  strengthening  Him  in  Gethsemane ;  as  also  His  bloody 
sweat.  It  discredits  twelve  whole  verses,  the  conclusion 
of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  (St.  Mark  xvi  19-20 )  ;  and  also  other 
twelve  whole  verses — the  story  of  the  women  taken  in 
adultery — John  viiin-12.* 

But  I  cannot  go  on  with  this  point,  time,  not  paucity  of 
examples,  forbids.  In  general  only  let  me  add,  as  a  loyal 
son  of  the  reformed  theology  and  of  the  Reformers,  that 
where  any  text  is  in  dispute,  the  Calvinistic  sense  of  it, 
being  opposite  to  man's  carnality,  is  probably  the  true  one. 
There  is  not  much  danger  that  we  shall,  any  of  us,  make 
ourselves  too  little — God  too  great — in  the  affair  of  sal- 
vation. 

3.  The  third  point  that  I  make  is  the  influence  of  Drs. 
Westcott  and  Hort's  principle  on  the  orthodox  doctrine  of 
Hell. 

It  is  well  known  that  "Modern  Thought"  has  busied  it- 
self much  with  an  assumed  distinction  between  the  words 
"Eternal"  and  "Everlasting."  Nothing  can  be  more  sad 
than  to  find  that  the  word  Everlasting  in  the  Revision  has 
been  in  deference  to  this  sceptical  trifling,  removed  every- 
where it  occurs  as  a  translation  of  the  word  diaovios. 

And  is  then  Hell  not  everlasting?  Does  Eternal  mean 
less?  Something  shorter?  Were  our  fathers,  the  old 
Divines.  Knox  and  Boston  and  Baxter  and  Edwards,  all 
wrong  in  making  the  everlastingness  of  Hell  the  very  fear- 
ful part  of  it?  The  offset  in  the  infinity  of  its  duration  to  the 
infiniteness  of  the  Majesty  against  whom  strikes  our  sin? 

The  fact  is,  the  word  diaiyios     is  applied  to  Heaven  as 

*The  American  Revision  incorporates  these  last  but  in  a  footnote 
throws  discredit  on  the  latter.  Codex  D,  a  fac-simile  of  which  lies 
under  my  hand,  contains  them  both  without  a  break. 


84  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

well  as  to  Hell.  It  is  the  word  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
equally  uses  to  emphasize  the  endless,  unending  durations 
of  joy. 

And  is  Heaven  then  not  everlasting?  What  then  is  ever- 
lasting? How  do  eternity,  God  even,  shrink  themselves  so 
to  the  shadows  and  measures  of  time.  I  tell  you,  men  and 
brethren,  the  thoughtlessness,  worldliness,  apathy  of  this 
age  needs  help  from  no  such  impressions.  Eternity  in  all 
its  awful  measures  is  too  dim  to  even  the  most  earnest  and 
awake  among  us  now. 

The  word  Hell  occurs  twenty-two  times  in  our  New 
Testament.  In  the  Revision  it  is  left  out  ten  times,  and 
in  everv  other  instance  has  a  note  or  change  which  lightens 
up  the  idea. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  word  Hell  occurs  thirty-one 
times.  In  the  Revision,  Sheol  replaces  it  eighteen  times. 
In  eight  places  more,  it  is  weakened  by  the  notes  "Grave," 
"Sheol."  Only  five  times,  and  all  those  in  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel,  where  it  may  be  easily  said  "the  word  is  figura- 
tive"— only  five  times  out  of  thirty-one  is  Hell  allowed  to 
stand. 

In  our  present  Bible  the  word  Hell  occurs  fifty-three 
times.  In  the  Revision  only  five  times  without  note  to 
relieve  the  idea. 

In  Mark  ix  144,  46,  48  our  Saviour  says  three  times  over, 
"Where  their  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched." 
The  revised  New  Testament  leaves  out  two  whole  verses — 
44  and  46 — i.  e.,  leaves  out  our  Saviour's  words — put  there 
as  we  firmly  believe,  for  very  and  for  awful  emphasis — 
thrice. 

The  place  which  Christ  in  Luke  xvi  123,  describes  is  a 
place  where  the  rich  man  "lift  up  his  eyes  being  in  tor- 
ments." That  the  word  Hades  substituted  by  the  Revisers 
gives  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  a  truer  and  more  vivid  notion  of 
"torments"  than  Hell  does,  what  common  sense  will  affirm? 

As  for  the  Old  Testament,  I  will  contend  it,  and  there 
are  men  too  in  the  Holy  Church  who  will  help  me  to  con- 
tend it — that  "Burn  unto  the  lowest  hell" — "sorrows  of 
hell" — "pains  of  hell" — "deeper  than  hell,"  mean  something 
more  than  is  brought  home  to  Anglo-Saxon  ears  by  untrans- 
lated "Sheol,"  and  something  more,  and  more  unutterable 
than  language  can  depict — than  thought  can  comprehend. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  85 

I  will  contend,  that  "Sheol"  in  every  one  of  the  thirty-one 
instances  of  the  Old  Testament  where,  in  the  authorized 
version  it  is  now  translated  "Hell,"  means,  in  fact 
or  in  figure,  all  that  Anglo-Saxon  ever  meant  by 
Hell;  and  that  men  who  change  that  word  and 
blot  away  that  thought,  have  God  to  deal  with 
and  no  judgment  of  fallible  and  feeble  man.  Hell  to  dis- 
appear from  the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament?  Why  it  is 
the  Old  Testament  whose  "Tophet"  and  whose  "everlasting 
burnings"  (Isa  33:14)  whose  "undying  worm  and  quench- 
less fire"  (Isa  lxvi:24)  afford  the  very  background  and 
intensest  picture  of  the  frightfulness,  eternity  and  in- 
stantaneousness  after  death  of  Hell  Fire.  It  is  the  New 
Testament  that  preaches  "the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord,"  but  it  is  the  Old  Testament  which  adds  to  this,  "the 
Day  of  Vengeance  of  our  God."  Hell  to  disappear  from 
the  Old  Testament !  You  never  can  sustain  the  doctrine 
from  the  New  without  the  undergirding  of  the  Old.  Blotted 
from  one  Testament,  the  ground,  the  reason  and  the  motive 
of  salvation  disappear  from  both. 

What  then  is  the  grand  summing  up  of  this  IV.  head  of 
the  discourse  (made  p.  16)  as  to  the  tendency  of  the  Re- 
vision ? 

1.  A  general  weakening  all  along  the  line  toward  Rome. 
This  must  be,  if  Rome  is  to  furnish  the  basal  document 
which  is  to  determine  our  Bible.  No  wonder  then  that  it 
has  been  labored  with  such  untiring  earnestness — worthier, 
far  worthier  of  a  better  cause — to  make  out  as  in  the  last 
Presbyterian  Review,  pp.  334-341,  that  "the  church  of 
Rome  is  not  so  corrupt  that  she  has  forefeited  her  right  to 
be  called  a  church."  That  she  must  therefore  be  accepted 
as  a  member  of  the  great  holy  Christian  communion,  and 
that  her  baptism  must  be  regarded  as  valid.  No  wonder 
I  say  that  men  have  gone  up  valiantly  to  Church  Courts  to 
overturn  if  possible,  the  declaration  of  the  Old  School  As- 
sembly of  1845  by  a  vote  of  173  to  8,  that  Rome  is  apostate 
and  her  baptism  as  a  baptism  into  an  apostate  system  is 
utterly  invalid.* 


♦Assembly's  Digest   (O.  S.)   pp.  77,  78,  "She  neither  administers 
Christian  Baptism,  nor  celebrates  the  Supper  of  our  Lord. 


86  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

2.  A  second  Tendency  of  the  Revision  is  to  loosen  the 
Revelation  of  God  from  the  letter,  and  to  cast  it  floating 
out  upon  the  winds.  How  can  God  inspire  thoughts,  ideas, 
but  by  words.  Did  you  ever  have  a  thought  in  your  mind, 
an  idea  that  was  not  in  words?  Never.  If  Inspiration  is 
not  verbal,  in  the  very  words  it  is  nowhere. 

3.  The  tendency  is  to  remove  from  men  that  fear  of 
penalty,  which,  say  what  we  please,  is  the  kingbolt  of  the 
Divine  Government  over  the  world.  Take  away  the  doc- 
trine of  Hell-Fire  and  the  world  would  became  one  great 
Sodom.  This,  this  it  is  above  all  else  that  holds  the  clamp  on 
wicked  unbelieving  men.  A  fear  of  suffering  the  ven- 
geance of  Eternal  Fire.  The  doctrine  is  "Turn  or  Burn !" 
short  but  unchangeable.  If  there  is  no  Hell-fire  to  be  saved 
from,  there  is  no  Salvation. 

4.  The  tendency  of  the  Revision  will  be  to  rebound. 
Perhaps  the  thing  has  gone  far  enough  and  men  are  be- 
ginning to  tire  of  tinkering  their  Bibles,  their  Creeds,  their 
sound  and  tried  and  wholesome  and  Scriptural  standards. 
Perhaps  the  craze  for  "Criticism"  has  had  its  day  and  the 
better  age  of  faith — subjection  to  the  mind  and  will  of 
God  is  coming  in.  "Faith,"  said  Luther,  "is  a  sixth  sense — ■ 
above  all  other  senses."  The  highest  exercise  of  reason  is  to 
believe  the  highest  kind  of  testimony.  "There  will  be  no 
new  God,  nor  new  devil,"  says  Spurgeon,  "nor  shall  we 
ever  have  a  new  saviour,  nor  a  new  atonement.  Why  then 
should  we  be  attracted  by  the  error  and  nonsense  which 
everywhere  plead  for  a  hearing  because  they  are  new?  To 
suppose  that  Theology  can  be  new  is  to  imagine  that  the 
Lord  Himself  is  of  yesterday.  A  doctrine  lately  become 
true  must  of  necessity  be  false.  Falsehood  has  no  beard, 
but  truth  is  hoary  with  an  age  immeasurable.  The  old 
Gospel  is  the  only  Gospel.  Pity  is  our  only  feeling  toward 
those  young  preachers  who  cry:  'See  my  new  Theology!'  in 
just  the  same  spirit  as  little  Mary  savs :  'See  my  pretty  new 
frock !'  " 

The  time  has  not  come  for  a  New  Translation  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures.  The  Church  is  not  spiritual  enough.  The 
Principle  has  not  been  settled,  and  the  Data  are  not  all  in. 

Now  let  me  say  in  conclusion — nothing  but  the  fear  of 
God — the  hand  of  God  upon  me  could  ever  drive  me  to 
preach  the  doctrine  of  endless  Hell-fire. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  87 

I  do  not  love  the  notion  of  Hell  any  more  than  any  other 
man  does.  Sensitive  as  most  men  to  pain,  to  sorrow  and 
tears,  tender  of  life  as  any  man,  and  increasingly  so  of  the 
life  of  even  a  worm,  I  could  well  resign  myself  to  say 
"Hades" — to  preach,  "My  friend  if  you  do  not  repent,  if 
you  die  without  Christ,  if  you  reject  this  Gospel  at  my 
lips,  you  will  return — you  will  go  away  into  Sheol !  You 
will  wander  in  the  shadows  of  a  heathen  Hades !"  But  I 
cannot  preach  so  and,  by  God's  help  I  never  will.*  The 
wicked  shall  be  turned  into  Hell  and  all  the  nations  that 
forget  God. 


*The  words  "Sheol,"  (Hebrew)  "Hades,"  (Greek)  mean  simply 
"the  invisible  world,"  in  which  are  two  places  and  two  places  only 
— Heaven  and  Hell.  Christ  on  the  Cross,  according  to  the  Re- 
formers, sunk  under  the  sorrows  of  Hell.  There,  on  Him,  the 
Infinite,  was  poured  the  penalty  infinite.  There  "the  pains  of  Hell 
gat  hold  upon  Him."  There,  "on  the  tree  of  the  cross,  He  humbled 
Himself  unto  the  deepest  reproach  and  pains  of  Hell,  both  in  body 
and  soul,  when  He  cried  out  with  a  loud  voice  My  God,  my  God! 
why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me!"  The  soul  of  His  sufferings  were 
His  soul-sufferings.  "On  the  cross,"  says  Calvin,  "He  endured 
all  hellish  agonies  in  His  soul."  There,  "all  God's  waves  and  His 
billows  went  over  Him."  There  and  not  in  any  Heathen  Hades, 
Romish  Purgatory  or  post-mortem  Probation. 

When  Christ  said  "It  is  Finished!"  it  was  finished.  When  He 
said  "To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise,"  that  very  day  He 
and  the  saved  thief  were  in  Paradise  which  St.  Paul  says  (2  Cor. 
xii  :2-4)  is  the  "Third  Heaven." 


88  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

RELATIVE  VALUE   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 
Hosea  viii  :i2. 

"I  have  written  to  him  the  great  things  of  My  law,  but  they  were 
counted  as  a-  strange  thing." 

The  point  at  issue  in  the  whole  controversy  with  "modern 
criticism"  is,  whether  the  Bible  can  be  placed  upon  the  same 
plane  with  other,  merely  human,  literature  and  treated  ac- 
cordingly, or  whether,  as  a  Divine  Revelation,  it  addresses 
us  with  a  command  and  sanction?  The  power  of  the  Book 
is  shaken  from  the  moment  we  deny  its  a  priori  binding 
claim  on  our  belief  and  obedience.  The  Book  is  a  royal 
document,  or  series  of  documents  issued  by  the  King  of 
kings,  and  binding  upon  every  subject.  The  Book,  then, 
is  to  be  received  with  reverence  by  one  who  falls  upon  his 
bended  knees  beneath  the  only  shaft  of  light  which,  from 
unknown  eternity,  brings  to  the  soul  the  certainties  of 
God — of  His  dealings  in  grace  with  men,  and  of  a  judg- 
ment. 

The  Old  Testament  is — in  some  sense — more  awful  than 
the  New — as  it  begins  with  a  creation  out  of  nothing — as  it 
thunders  from  Sinai,  and  as  it  prefigures  and  predicts  the 
momentous  facts  of  Calvary  and  the  Apocalypse. 

God  the  Invisible  appears  in  Genesis  and  discloses  Him- 
self— from  the  first — in  the  mystery  of  three  Persons.  God's 
holiness  and  the  certainty  that  sin  shall  be  punished,  is 
revealed  in  the  awful  catastrophes  of  the  Fall,  of  the  Deluge 
and  of  Sodom.  His  mercy  is  conspicuous  in  Sacrifice,  from 
Abel's  altar  down  through  hectatombs  of  Blood,  to  the  last 
sublime  tragedy  of  Golgotha.  The  wonder  and  the  glory  of 
His  purpose  shine  in  the  raptures  of  Enoch  and  Elijah — in 
the  flaming  wheels  of  Ezekiel,  and  in  those  visions  of  Daniel 
which  picture  the  confirming  of  the  kingdom  in  the  hands  of 
the  triumphant  Messiah  by  the  ineffable  Ancient  of  Days. 

But  it  has  been  represented  that  the  Bible  has  twisted  it- 
self up  like  a  worm  from  the  dust  by  an  Evolution  in  which 
the  human  element  is  most  conspicuous.     In  place  of  the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  89 

doctrine  "I  have  written  to  him  the  great  things  of  My  law" 
— "all  Scripture,  the  writing,  is  given  by  inspiration  of 
God," — in  place  of  the  dictum  of  Christ,  "It  is  written," 
there  has  been  conceived  a  notion  which  lifts  inspiration 
from  the  writings  to  the  writers,  and  then  begins  to  prate, 
with  owl-like  wisdom,  of  degrees  of  inspiration — shad- 
ing these  degrees  away  until — ,  to  use  one  of  the  favorite 
illustrations  of  this  rationalistic  school,  the  feathers  at  the 
tips  of  the  wings  of  the  eagle  are  dead  things  as  compared 
with  the  heart  of  the  bird.  Certain  statements — like  the 
nails  on  the  ends  of  the  fingers,  may  be  excluded  as  worth- 
less. 

Now  for  the  Old  Testament, — 

If  we  lose  it,  we  lose  our  Bibles — if  we  shake  it,  we  shake 
our  Bibles,  for  nothing  can  be  more  true  than  that  axiom 
of  St.  Augustine — In  Vetcre  Testamento,  Novum  latet; 
in  Novo  Testamento,  Vetus  patet, — "In  the  Old  Testament 
the  New  lies  hidden,  in  the  New  the  Old  is  made  known." 
Grant  that  a  human  element  is  in  the  Old  Testament,  who 
can  determine  how  far  that  element  extends?  No  one. 
Grant  that  something  has  been  found  out  about  the  Bible, 
within  the  last  fifty  years,  that  makes  it  less  reliable — less 
inerrant,  in  plain  English,  less  free  from  mistakes  than  it 
was, — in  some  ways,  a  book  that  is  under  suspicion,  and  the 
result  is  that  the  mind  is  unsettled.  Belief  rests  upon  a  less 
secure  basis  than  it  did.  Grant  that  some  geographical  or 
chronological  statements  are  inaccurate — go  a  little  further, 
and  assume  that  the  men  whose  names  are  attached  to  the 
books  did  not  write  them — that  Moses  is  a  fictitious  char- 
acter invented  after  the  captivity — that  Deuteronomy  was 
written  by  reformed  Jews  who  got  their  ethics  in  Babylon — 
that  there  were  no  "ethics,"  i.  e.  morality  in  the  days  of  the 
Judges — that  the  stories  of  Jephthah  and  of  Jael  are  atro- 
cious— that  the  XI  of  Hebrews  might  as  well  be  sponged 
out  if  one  is  going  back  to  the  Old  Testament  for  exam- 
ples of  any  living  faith  implying  spiritual  and  consistent  con- 
duct— that — passing  over  Isaiah  who  is  a  composite  char- 
acter made  up  of  several  different  men,  and  Ezekiel  and 
Daniel  who  are  of  inferior  consideration,  the  great  and 
perhaps  the  only  authentic  prophets  are  Hosea,  Amos  and 
Jeremiah  who  lived  at  the  close  of  the  Theocracy  when 


90  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Israel,  as  a  nation,  was  practically  done  with  and  "the 
times  of  the  Gentiles"  were  about  to  come  in. 

Grant  that  Ecclesiastes  was  not  written  by  Solomon  but 
put  in  the  mouth  of  Solomon  as  Browning  puts  reflections 
into  the  mouth  of  Fra  Filippo  Lippi ;  and  that  Job,  as  a  char- 
acter is  perhaps  historically  as  true  as  Hamlet  upon  whom 
Shakespeare's  tragedy  was  founded, —  Grant  this,  and  then 
grant  that  the  story  of  the  Fall  itself,  on  which  St.  Paul 
grounds  all  his  theology,  is  but  a  myth — or  as  Westcott  and 
Bishop  Temple — not  to  speak  of  pronounced  heresiarchs — 
put  it,  an  allegory  covering  a  long  succession  of  evolutions 
which  had  done  their  work,  in  forming  man  such  as  he  is, 
before  the  narrative  begins —  Grant  these  things  and  what 
becomes  of  the  awful  impress  of  responsibility  laid  on  the 
conscience  by  the  Sacred  Volume?  What  becomes  of  the 
tremendous  parallel  between  the  First  and  Second  Adam  on 
which  is  built  the  covenant  of  Grace? 

As  a  counterpoise  to  a  tendency  so  dangerous  and  to  errors 
so  radical,  let  us  inquire. 

I.  What  is  meant  by  the  Old  Testament? 

II.  What  is  meant  by  its  being  inspired? 

III.  What  is  its  value  relative  to  the  New? 

I.  What  is  the  Old  Testament? 

It  is  the  word  of  God — the  very  word  of  very  God — "I 
have  written  to  him  the  great  things  of  my  law." 

i.  The  Bible  claims  to  be  the  word  of  God.  No  literature 
in  the  world  can  for  one  instant  be  compared  with  it.  It  is 
evidently  on  a  plane  above  the  natural. 

Nor  can  anything  be  alleged  against  a  supernatural  com- 
munication from  God.  Neither  science,  nor  history,  nor  criti- 
cism, nor  any  fact  we  know,  nor  any  postulate  we  can  con- 
jecture, can  bear  evidence  against  the  Divine  origin  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures.  There  is  no  reason,  and  there  can  be 
none,  why  God,  who  has  made  man  in  His  own  image  and 
capable  of  communion  with  Himself  should  not  speak  to  man 
and,  having  taught  him  letters,  write  to  man,  in  other  words, 
to  put  His  communication  in  permanent  form.  The  man 
who  denies  the  supernatural  is  one  who  contradicts  his  own 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  91 

limitations.  Either  he  is  the  universe,  or  there  is  some- 
thing outside  of  him.  Either  he  is  his  own  god  or  there  is 
a  God  above  him.  The  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament, 
including  that  of  the  whole  Bible,  is  a  matter,  first  of  all, 
of  pure  Divine  testimony,  which  leaves  us  nothing  but  to 
receive  it.  God  says,  "I  am  speaking."  That  ends  it.  The 
instant  order  of  the  Book  to  every  reader  is  "Believe  or  die !" 

2.  The  Book  brings  with  it  its  authentication.  Who 
would  think  of  standing  up  under  the  broad  blaze  of  the 
noonday  sun  to  deny  the  existence  of  the  sun?  His  shining 
is  his  authentication. 

In  like  manner  the  Old  Testament,  by  the  supernatural 
truths  which  it  reveals,  by  the  supernatural  facts  which  it 
records,  by  its  supernatural  appeal  to  heart  and  conscience,  by 
the  witness  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  by  its  influence  in  up- 
lifting lands  and  ages,  radiates  itself  through  all  horizons 
as  Divine. 

3.  The  Old  Testament  contains  the  oldest  records  of  the 
world — records  dating  back  of  all  history,  of  all  relics, 
of  all  memory  or  reach  of  man — records  which,  in  their 
earliest  pages,  cannot  be  confirmed,  because  there  are  no 
data  beside  them — which  run  back  of  the  dimmest  tradition 
and  which  only  in  later  periods  begin  to  receive  confirma- 
tion, as  thev  universally  do,  from  fragments  of  Assyrian 
cylinders  and  ruins  of  Egyptian  monuments.  God,  back  of 
all  profane  history,  tells  us  of  the  origin  of  nations,  of  the 
Flood,  of  the  antediluvian  era,  of  creation,  things  otherwise 
and  utterly  beyond  our  ken. 

4.  The  canon  or  volume  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  we 
have  it,  containing  thirty-nine  books,  is  identically  the  text 
that  Christ  had,  and  that  He  endorses,  quoting  from  its 
every  part. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  no  other  books  in  the  world, 
written  in  Hebrew,  which  date  from  before  Christ's  day. 

Again :  The  volume  from  which  Christ  quotes  was  in  ex- 
istence and  identically  the  same  as  now,  when  the  Septuagint 
translation  into  the  Greek  was  made,  280  years  before  Christ. 

Again :  The  Hebrew  Bible  which  we  have,  containing  the 
thirty-nine  Old  Testament  books,  has  come  down  to  us  pre- 
served with  a  care  beyond  that  ever  given  to  another  book. 
The  Jews  cherished  the  highest  awe  and  veneration  for 


92  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

their  sacred  writings  which  they  regarded  as  the  "Oracles 
of  God."  They  maintained  that  God  had  more  care  of  the 
letters  and  syllables  of  the  Law  than  of  the  stars  of  heaven, 
and  that  upon  each  tittle  of  it  mountains  of  doctrine  hung. 
For  this  reason  every  individual  letter  was  numbered  by 
them  and  account  kept  of  how  often  it  occurred.  In  the 
transcription  of  an  authorized  synagogue  MS.,  rules  were 
enforced  of  the  minutest  character.  The  copyist  must 
write  with  a  particular  ink,  on  a  particular  parchment.  He 
must  write  in  so  many  columns,  of  such  a  size,  and  con- 
taining just  so  many  lines  and  words.  No  word  to  be  written 
without  previously  looking  at  the  original.  The  copy,  when 
completed,  must  be  examined  and  compared  within  thirty 
days;  if  four  errors  were  found  on  one  parchment,  the 
examination  went  no  farther — the  whole  was  rejected.  When 
worn  out,  the  rolls  were  officially  and  solemnly  burned  lest 
the  Scripture  might  fall  into  profane  hands  or  into  frag- 
ments. 

The  Old  Testament,  precisely  as  we  have  it,  was  en- 
dorsed by  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  When  he  appeared 
on  the  earth,  1,500  years  after  Moses,  the  first  of  the 
prophets,  and  400  years  after  Malachi,  the  last  of  them, 
He  bore  open  testimony  to  the  Sacred  Canon  as  held  by 
the  Jews  of  His  time.  Nor  did  he — among  all  the  evils 
which  he  charged  upon  His  countrymen — ever  intimate 
that  they  had,  in  any  degree,  corrupted  the  canon,  either 
by  addition,  diminution  or  alteration  of  any  kind. 

By  referring  to  the  "Scriptures,"  which  He  declared  "can- 
not be  broken,"  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  given  His  full 
attestation  to  all  and  every  one  of  the  Books  of  the  Old 
Testament  as  the  unadulterated  Word  of  God.  In  his  con- 
versation with  the  two  going  to  Emmaus,  when,  begin- 
ing  at  Moses  and  all  the  Prophets,  He  expounded  to  them 
in  all  the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning  Himself,  He  gave 
express  endorsement  to  the  whole  canon,  and  to  the  canon 
as  a  whole.  Again  when — just  before  His  ascension,  He 
said  to  his  apostles,  adopting  the  three-fold  division  of  the 
Old  Testament  known  to  them — "These  are  the  words  which 
I  spake  unto  you  while  I  was  yet  present  with  you,  that 
all  things  must  be  fulfilled  which  were  written  in  the  Law 
of  Moses,  and  in  the  Prophets  and  in  the  Psalms  concern- 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  93 

ing  Me,"  He  endorsed  the  Books,  one  and  all.  Our  Blessed 
Lord  puts  "what  is  written"  equal  to  His  own  declaration. 
He  saw  the  Old  Testament  inspired  from  one  end  to  the 
other,  divine  from  one  end  to  the  other.  Ah !  how  He  valued 
the  sacred  text. 

Our  modern  critics,  with  arrogance  which  rises  to  dar- 
ing impiety,  deny  to  Christ  the  insight  which  they  claim  for 
themselves.  The  point  right  here  is  this,  Did  Jesus  fun- 
damentally misconceive  the  character  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment? Did  he  take  for  a  created  and  immediate  revela- 
tion what  was  of  a  slow  and  ordinary  growth?  Or  was  He 
dishonest,  and  did  He  make  about  Abraham,  for  example, 
statements  and  representations  which  belong  only  to  a 
geographical  myth — a  personality  which  never  existed? 

The  authority  of  Jesus  Christ,  God  speaking — not  from 
heaven  only,  but  with  human  lips — has  given  a  sanction  to 
every  book  and  sentence  in  the  Jewish  canon,  and  blas- 
phemv  is  written  on  the  forehead  of  any  theory  which 
alleges  imperfection,  error,  contradiction  or  sin  in  any 
book  in  the  sacred  collection. 

The  Old  Testament  was  Our  Lord's  onlv  study  book.  On 
it  His  spiritual  life  was  nurtured.  In  all  His  life  it  was  His 
only  reference.  Through  His  Apostles  He  reaffirmed  it. 
Five  hundred  and  four  times  is  the  Old  Testament  quoted  in 
the  New. 

5.  The  whole  Jewish  nation,  down  to  this  day,  acknowl- 
edge, without  one  dissenting  voice,  the  genuineness  of  the 
Old  Testament.  The  Book  reflects  upon  them  and  con- 
demns them ;  it  also  goes  to  build  up  Christianity,  a  sys- 
tem which  they  hate,  and  yet,  impressed  with  an  unalterable 
conviction  of  their  divine  origin,  they  have,  at  the  expense 
of  everything  dear  to  man,  clung  to  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures. 

6.  All  churches,  everywhere  and  always,  and  with  one  ac- 
cord, declare  the  Bible  in  both  Testaments  to  be  the  founda- 
tion of  their  creed.  All  the  fathers,  Melito,  Origen,  Cyril, 
Athanasius,  in  their  lists  include  the  whole  thirty-nine  books. 
The  Council  of  Laodicea,  held  in  the  year  363,  names  and 
confirms  them. 


94  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

7.  The  books  hang  together  and  form  one  perfect  unity 
which  cannot  be  impaired  in  the  smallest  particular  without 
mutilation  and  loss.  The  attempt  to  remove  any  book  or  part 
of  a  book  would  at  once  open  an  unthought  of  gap  which 
nothing  but  that  book  or  fragment  could  fill.  A  while  ago  an 
effort  was  made  to  discredit  Jonah  as  fable,  but  it  was  found 
that  the  Deity  of  Christ  went  down  with  Jonah,  that  the 
linchpin  between  the  Testaments  fell  out  with  Jonah,  and 
the  mass  of  evidence  in  favor  of  the  book  became  so 
overwhelming  that  its  doughty  opponents  beat  a  hasty  and 
cowardly  retreat  into  apology,  retraction  and  silence. 

II.  The  Old  Testament  is  inspired  from  end  to  end — that 
is  our  second  point.     What  do  we  mean  by  this? 

We  mean  infallibility  and  perfection.  We  mean  that  the 
books  are  of  absolute  authority,  demanding  an  unlimited 
submission.  We  mean  that  Genesis  is  as  literally  the  Word 
of  God  as  are  the  Gospels — Joshua  as  is  the  Acts — Proverbs 
as  are  the  Epistles — the  Song  of  Solomon  as  is  the  Revela- 
tion. We  mean  that  the  writings  were  inspired.  Nothing 
is  said  in  the  Bible  about  the  inspiration  of  the  writers.  It 
is  of  small  importance  to  us  who  wrote  Ruth.  It  is  of 
every  importance  that  Ruth  was  written  by  God. 

How  did  God  write?  On  Sinai,  He  wrote,  we  are  told, 
with  his  finger.  We  are  told  this  in  seven  different  places. 
"The  tables  were  the  work  of  God,"  says  Moses,  "and  the 
writing  was  the  writing  of  God."  "The  Lord  delivered  unio 
me  two  Tables  of  Stone  written  with  the  finger  of  God."  Let 
me  think,  every  time  I  read  the  ten  commandments.  "God's 
finger  traced  the  square  Hebrew  characters  that  make  these 
words.  But,  if  this  be  true  of  Exod.  XX,  then  it  is  true  of 
the  whole  Canon.  The  human  element  vanishes  and  lays 
bare  the  Divine.  It  is  God  who  writes  the  Book — a  letter 
and  a  message  straight  from  heaven.  "I  have  written  to 
him  the  great  things  of  My  Law."  On  the  original  parch- 
ment every  sentence,  word,  line,  mark,  point,  pen-stroke, 
jot,  tittle,  was  put  there  by  God. 

But  God  wrote,  not  only  as  on  Sinai,  but  also  through 
men.     How  did  He  do  this? 

He  did  not  do  it  contrary  to  them :  as  one  would  take  the 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  95 

fingers  of  a  wilful  schoolboy  and  force  them  to  make  certain 
marks  on  a  slate  or  in  a  copy-book. 

God  wrote  above  them,  for  they  themselves  "inquired 
what  things  they  were  which  the  Spirit  of  Christ  which  was 
in  them  did  signify."  "Unto  whom  it  was  revealed  that  not 
unto  themselves  but  unto  us  did  they  minister  the  things 
which  are  reported." 

God  used  men  with  different  degrees  of  style.  He  made 
Amos  write  like  a  herdsman  and  David  like  a  poet.  He 
made  the  difference,  provided  for  it  and  employed  it  because 
He  would  have  variety  and  adapt  Himself  to  all  classes 
and  ages. 

He  wrote  through  the  men.  How  did  He  do  this  ?  I  do 
not  know.  The  fact,  I  know,  for  I  am  told  it.  The  secret  is 
His  own.  I  read  that  "holy  men  of  old  spake  as  they  were 
moved" — then  they  did  not  choose  their  own  language.  I 
do  not  know  how  the  electric  fluid  writes  letters  on  a  strip  of 
paper.  I  do  not  know  how  my  soul  dictates  to  and  controls 
my  body  so  that  the  moving  of  my  finger  tips  is  the  action 
of  my  soul.  I  do  not  know  how,  in  regeneration,  God  does 
all  and  I  do  all.  He  produces  all  and  I  act  all,  for  what  He 
produces  is  my  act. 

Inspiration  is  a  matter  of  Divine  testimony.  It  was  God 
Himself,  we  are  told,  who  "at  sundry  times  and  in  divers 
manners,  spake,  in  time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prop- 
hets." 

"But  there  are  variations  in  the  readings  !" 

There  may  be  in  some  cases  in  the  copies — but  none  in 
the  original — which  God  made  and  which  He  will  preserve 
in  spite  of  all  variations.  "Forever,  O  Lord,  Thy  word  is 
settled  in  heaven."    If  settled  there,  earth  cannot  move  it. 

"But  there  are  discrepancies — contradictions." 

No !  Scores  of  times  I  have  corrected  myself,  but  never 
God's  word.  Patience  and  a  larger  knowledge  will  solve 
every  knot.  Dr.  Hodge  of  Princeton,  says:  "Not  one  single 
instance  of  a  discrepancy  in  Scripture  has  ever  been  proved." 

The  Scripture  of  the  Old  Testament  must  be  directly  in- 
spired because  it  reveals,  behind  the  act,  the  inner,  secret 
thoughts  and  motives.  Who  but  the  Searcher  of  hearts, — 
what  man  or  angel  were  competent  for  this? 


9b  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

The  Scripture  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  a  revelation,  must 
be  free  from  error,  or,  if  not,  it  is  inferior  to  certain  works 
of  man.  Euclid,  for  instance.  Algebra,  for  instance.  He 
who  charges  error  charges  it  on  God. 

The  Scripture  of  the  Old  Testament  must  be  directly  in- 
spired because  it  reverses  human  thought  and  gives  God's 
order — a  spiritual  order,  not  man's.  Would  all  the  united 
wisdom  of  men  have  led  them  to  relate  the  history  of  the 
creation  of  the  universe  in  a  single  chapter,  and  that  of  the 
erection  of  the  Tabernacle  in  thirteen?  The  description  of 
the  great  edifice  of  the  world,  would  it  not  seem  to  require 
more  words  than  that  of  a  small  tent?  That  would  be  man's 
thought.  What  is  God's?  The  Tabernacle  was  a  figure  of 
the  Church,  and  God  would  show  that  the  world  is  less  than 
the  Church  and  was  created  only  as  a  platform  for  the 
Church  by  which  His  manifold  wisdom  is  to  be  made  known 
to  principalities  and  powers. 

So  far  from  the  Bible  being  imperfect  in  its  beginnings 
and  growing  to  be  perfect — rising  as  it  advances,  from  a 
merely  ethnic  level  to  a  higher  level  is,  from  the  first,  super- 
natural and  therfore  perfect — perfect  as  God,  of  whom  it  is 
the  absolute  and  inerrant  disclosure  and  transcript.  Un- 
changeable as  God  is,  its  ipse  dixit  is  final. 

The  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  we  have 
them  in  their  order  down  to  II.  Kings,  are  logically  and 
chronologically  successive — in  the  line  of  God's  purpose  and 
His  working,  as  they  ought  to  be — and  they  form  a  suc- 
cinct and  continuous  history  which  is  supplemented,  but 
not  deranged  by  other  books. 

The  contention  of  the  Modern  School  is  that  the  books  and 
even  their  contents  are  not  chronological  but  simply  a  con- 
geries of  material  thrown  together  by  compilers.  But  never 
does  the  name  of  a  compiler  appear.  No  one  yet  has  had 
imagination  enough  to  invent  a  plausible  name. 

According  to  this  theory  Moses  could  not  have  written 
Genesis  i  and  2,  because  the  abstract  name  of  God  is  given 
in  the  account  of  creation  but  the  covenant  name  "Jehovah" 
when  it  comes  to  fellowship  with  man. 

It  is  said,  too,  that  Abraham  was  a  myth  intended  to  repre- 
sent a  period  and  tide  of  emigration.  It  is  said  that  the  story 
of  Joseph  was  written  by  two  men,  one  of  whom  was  friendly 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  97 

to  Reuben  and  the  other  to  Juclah.  It  is  said  that  the  reli- 
gious laws  and  ordinances  of  the  Old  Covenant  were  not 
given  once  for  all,  in  permanent  form,  from  Sinai  and  in  the 
Pentateuch,  but  grew  up  under  human  teachers  and  by  a 
process  of  natural  development  or  evolution,  so  that  Deuter- 
onomy is  the  last  of  all  the  books — except  perhaps  the 
Psalms,  only  two  of  which,  the  7th  and  the  18th,  were  writ- 
ten by  David — the  rest  were  exilic  and  dated  from  Baby- 
lon. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  what !  To  discredit  the  statement 
repeated  in  almost  every  chapter  of  Exodus  and  Leviticus — 
"And  the  Lord  said  to  Moses."  "As  the  Lord  commanded 
Moses."  To  charge  Christ  with  falsehood,  who  says  "Moses 
said,"  "Moses  taught  you,"  "David  says" — quoting  as  He 
does  not  from  the  7th  and  the  18th  only,  but  from  the  41st, 
the  110th,  the  118th  and  other  Psalms.  The  result  is  to 
disintegrate  the  Bible  and  throw  it  into  heaps  of  confusion 
mingled  with  rubbish — to  shake  faith  to  the  very  founda- 
tions and  scatter  Revelation  to  the  winds.  It  is  to  elevate 
Robertson  Smith,  Wellhausen,  Baur,  Astruc,  Cheyne  and 
other  heretics,  who  seem  to  have  taken  God  into  their  own 
hands,  to  a  level  with  the  Saviour  of  men  and  His  prophets, 
whom  they  criticise  freely.  This  is  not  exegesis,  it  is  con- 
spiracy. It  is  not  contribution  to  religious  knowledge,  it  is 
crime! 

Think  of  the  amazing,  the  stupendous  difference  between 
Christ  quoting  from  a  human  compilation,  or  from  the 
living  Oracles  of  God  !  "I  came  not  to  destroy,"  He  says, 
"but  to  fulfil" — to  fulfil  what?  A  hap-hazard  collection  of 
Ezra's  time — made  up  of  fragmentary  documents  of  men. 
some  of  whom  had  an  inspiration  little  above  that  of 
Browning  and  Tennyson ! 

III.  What  then,  is  the  relative  value  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment? 

1.  It  is  of  equal  value  with  the  New.  We  have  seen  that 
every  word  of  it  was  penned  by  God.  The  words  of  God 
are  of  an  equal  value. 

2.  The  Old  Testament  impresses  the  most  awful  truths 
concerning  the  personality  and  holiness  of  God  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  His  law  and  its  penalty. 


98  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

In  the  Old  Testament  God  is  seen  above,  apart  from  the 
universe — not  immanent,  but  pre-manent — Self  Existent, 
while  the  universe  depends  upon  Him,  creating  it,  control- 
ling it  and  working  in  and  through  it. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  holiness  of  God  is  seen  reflected 
in  His  law  and  its  penalty.  Sinners  against  nature  die.  The 
Antediluvians  die.  The  Sodomites  die.  Nadab  and  Abihu 
die.  Leprosy  seizes  Gehazi.  On  Sinai  the  Law  thunders  as 
nowhere  else  in  the  whole  Bible.  The  mountain  rocks  un- 
der the  presence  and  voice  of  Jehovah.  Hell  in  its  most 
awful  disclosure  lies  open  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  steps 
of  men  are  seen  "taking  hold  on  hell."  "The  wicked  shall 
be  turned  into  hell."  "The  sinners  in  Zion  are  afraid ;  fear- 
fulness  hath  surprised  the  hypocrites :  who  among  us  shall 
dwell  with  the  devouring  fire?  Who  among  us  shall  dwell 
with  Everlasting  burnings?'' 

3.  The  Old  Testament  teaches  and  impresses  each  one  of 
the  doctrines  of  grace. 

The  doctrine  of  depravity.  It  shows  sin  a  serpent  in  the 
Garden.  It  declares  that  every  imagination  of  the  thought 
of  man's  heart  is  only  evil  continually.  "Behold  I  was 
shapen  in  iniquity,"  says  David,  "and  in  sin  did  my  mother 
conceive  me."  St.  Paul,  to  emphasize  the  depravity  of  man, 
quotes  everywhere  from  the  Old  Testament. 

The  doctrine  of  election  is  taught  everywhere  in  the  Old 
Testament.  "Jacob  have  I  loved,  Esau  have  I  hated." 
"Blessed  is  the  man  whom  Thou  chooest  and  causest  to  ap- 
proach unto  Thee."     Israel  is  everywhere  a  chosen  people. 

The  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  is  explicitly  taught  in 
the  Old  Testament.  "Even  as  David  also  describeth  the 
blessedness  of  the  man  unto  whom  God  imputeth  righteous- 
ness without  works,  saying:  Blessed  is  the  man  whose  in- 
iquities are  forgiven  and  whose  sins  are  covered." 

The  doctrine  of  regeneration — of  a  new  heart,  of  a  new 
birth,  of  a  new  spirit — is  taught  in  the  Old  Testament. 
"Create  within  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God,  and  renew  a  right 
spirit  within  me."  "A  new  heart  also  will  I  give  unto  you 
and  a  new  spirit  will  I  put  within  you."  Christ  tells  Nico- 
demus,  a  master  in  Israel,  that  he  ought  to  have  known  this. 
The  doctrine  of  the  preservation  of  the  Saints  is  every- 
where taught  in  the  Old  Testament.     "The  mountains  shall 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  99 

depart  and  the  hills  be  removed  before  God  will  ever  break 
His  promise  to  save  His  people  who  trust  Him."  "Israel 
shall  be  saved  in  the  Lord  with  an  everlasting  salvation." 

Had  we  the  Old  Testament  alone  it  would  be  sufficient  to 
save  us.  I  myself  was  converted  on  that  very  part  of  Isaiah 
which  the  critics  say  he  did  not  write.  Men  have  been 
converted  by  the  millions  and  are  now  in  heaven  who  never 
knew  anything  but  the  Old  Testament.  They  found  God  in 
it,  and  so  may  you  and  I. 

4.  The  Old  Testament  throws  a  light  upon  Christ  and 
upon  the  whole  Christian  system  without  which  the  New 
Testament  could  not  be  understood.  Atonement  looms  in 
Abel's  altar  and  runs  on  to  the  Great  Substitute  to  be 
stricken  for  His  people,  upon  whom  the  Lord  hath  laid  the 
iniquity  of  us  all.  "The  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  Blood." 
says  Leviticus,  "and  I  have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar 
to  make  an  atonement  for  the  soul — for  it  is  the  Blood  that 
maketh  an  atonement  for  the  soul."  Blood  drips  from  each 
page  of  the  Old  Testament.  Each  letter  stars  crimson. 
What  is  all  this,  if  not  Christ?  The  Old  Testament  is  the 
dictionary  and  key  to  the  New.  If  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  without  Christ  we  were  helpless,  equally — with- 
out the  Old  Testament  and  with  Christ — we  should  be 
helpless.  I  beseech  you,  therefore,  Brethren,  beware  of 
what  is  called  "the  modern  school." 

5.  The  entire  Old  Testament  is  typical.  "All  these 
things,"  says  St.  Paul,  were  types — xvitoi,  raw  a  Ss  itavra. 

There  is  a  mystical  sense  in  the  Scripture  which  ought  to 
make  men  afraid  of  it.  God  and  His  purpose  runs  through 
it  all.  Melchizedeck,  Joshua,  David,  Solomon,  Jonah,  all 
typify  Christ.  Christ  was  the  Manna  in  the  wilderness.  Christ 
was  the  Stricken  Rock.  Hagar  is  the  Covenant  of  works, 
Sarah  is  the  Covenant  of  grace.  Turn  the  pages  reverently, 
prayerfully,  I  beg  you,  for  these  and  ten  thousand  other 
mysteries,  undiscovered  yet,  lie  hidden  in  these  Oracles  of 
God.  There  is  a  closeness  and  a  detail  of  correspondence 
between  the  story  of  ancient  Israel  and  the  experience 
of  the  Christian  soul  and  the  life  of  the  Christian  Church 
which  is  the  result  of  no  accident — the  caprice  of  no 
compiler. 


ioo  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

"Sweet  fields  beyond  the  swelling  flood, 
Stand  dressed  in  living  green," 

is  no  pictured  fancy  of  what  the  Old  Testament  reveals. 

6.  The  whole  Old  Testament  is  prophetic  of  Christ.  "These 
are  they  which  testify  of  Me."  Each  phase  of  His  suffering 
is  depicted  down  to  the  casting  of  lots  for  His  vesture: 
each  phase  of  His  glory  from  His  triumphant  entry  into 
Jerusalem  upon  an  ass's  colt  to  the  consummation  of  His 
Messianic  and  Davidic  throne.  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  the 
Gospel  of  God  to  which  he  was  separated,  had  been  "prom- 
ised before  by  the  prophets  in  the  Holy  Scripture  concern- 
ing His  Son  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  St.  John  tells  us 
that  "the  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy." 
The  whole  Old  Testament,  from  Genesis  to  Malachi,  spells 
"Jesus,"  "Jesus  only." 

"Christ  is  the  end,  as  Christ  was  the  beginning; 
Christ  the  beginning,  for  the  end  is  Christ." 

7.  The  entire  scheme  of  right  and  sound  theology  de- 
pends upon  the  Old  Testament.  St.  Paul  argues  in  Romans 
and  in  Galatians  that  Abraham  was  not  justified  by  works 
but  by  simple  faith  and  therefore  that  we  may  be.  He 
argues  in  Romans  5  that  if  the  whole  race  fell  by  representa- 
tion in  Adam  as  their  federal  head — if  we  were  condemned 
on  the  ground  of  what  one  man  did,  without  having  a  hand 
in  it — then  there  is  a  loophole  by  which  we  can  be  saved 
on  the  ground  of  what  another  Man — a  second  Adam — has 
done,  without  having  a  hand  in  that  either. 

May  God  enable  us  to  seize  upon  that  loophole  of  escape 
and  rescue  and  to  shun  the  errors  which  are  in  the  air  all 
around  us  and  are  drifting  so  much  of  the  misdirected  zeal 
and  learning  of  the  present  generation  into  a  blind  alley, 
from  which  there  is  no  safe  issue  but  return. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  101 


COSMOGONY:    A    STUDY    OF   THE    FIRST    TWO 
CHAPTERS  OF  GENESIS. 

'Tn  the  beginning-,  God  created  the  Heavens  and  the 
Earth  !"  Here  are  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  through  which 
we  pass  from  Time  with  all  its  changes,  into  Eternity — a 
shoreless,  changeless  sea.  Here  are  the  frontiers  of  human 
exploration,  beyond  which  rolls  and  surges  the  illimitable 
Ocean  of  Deity,  self-existent,  blessed  forever  and  independ- 
ent of  all  creatures. 

The  first  utterance  of  the  Bible  fixes  it  that  matter  is  not 
eternal.  That  there  was  a  point  when  the  universe  was  not 
and  when  God,  by  simple  fiat,  brought  it  into  being.  So 
that,  as  the  apostle  says,  He  called  the  Existent  out  of  the 
non-existent — the  visible  from  that  which  had  no  visibility. 
In  other  words,  God  made  the  world  out  of  nothing — an 
awful  nothing — the  idea  of  which  we  cannot  comprehend. 
A  lonely  and  a  solitary  Worker,  out  of  emptiness,  He  created 
fullness — out  of  what  was  not,  all  things — getting  from 
Himself  the  substance  as  well  as  the  shaping — the  fact  as 
well  as  the  how. 

In  the  beginning,  God  created  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth ! 
He  had  to  tell  us  that,  for  He  only  was  there.  Pie  had  to 
tell  us  that,  but — being  told,  we,  at  once,  believe  it,  for 
everything  outside  the  self  existent  must  have  a  beginning. 
Matter  must  have  had  a  beginning,  for — push  its  molecules 
back  as  far  as  you  will,  either  matter  was  the  egg  out  of 
which  God  was  hatched  or  God  hatched  matter.  Can  there 
be  any  question  as  to  which  of  these  is  true? 

"In  the  beginning,  God  created  the  Heavens  and  the 
Earth."  If  this  first  sentence  is  unauthentic,  the  whole 
Bible  is  untrue  and  for  six  thousand  years  men  have  been 
duped  and  deluded  who  have  loved  and  cherished  its  teach- 
ings. 

If  this  first  sentence  is,  however,  to  be  relied  on,  then 
God  is  the  author  and  the  book  is  true  in  all  its  chain  of 
history  and  doctrine — true  throughout. 

The  credibility  of  the  Bible,  then,  depends  upon  the  truth 
of  the  First  Chapter  of  Genesis.     If  that  chapter  is  clean 


102  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

and  clear  in  all  its  statements,  so  is  the  Book.  If  that 
chapter  contains  "a  few  small  scientific  lies,"  then  the  Book 
is  a  caries  of  deceptions  from  cover  to  cover.  Thus  we  are 
either  Christians  or  sceptics  ! 

The  Bible  says:  "In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth."  Heathen  philosophy  has  always 
said :  In  the  beginning  the  universe  commenced  to  evolve 
itself.  The  Bible  says :  "God  created  man  male  and  female 
and,  from  one  pair,  one  race."  Ancient  philosophy  knew 
nothing  about  this.  Each  tribe,  each  nation  had  its  own 
local  traditions,  deities  and  legends.  The  original  bond 
uniting  all  people,  in  one  blood,  was  unknown.  Each  na- 
tion was  supposed  to  have  sprung  directly  from  the  earth,  or 
to  have  emigrated  from  a  region  where  their-  ancestors  so 
sprung.  Outside  of  the  Bible  nowhere  was  there  a  notion 
of  the  human  race  as  a  unit,  nor  of  its  having  any  other 
than  an  autochthonous, — i.  e.,  a  material  and  earthly  origin. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  no  essential  injury  is  done  to 
Christian  faith  by  concessions  made  to  modern  criticism — 
that  if  one  believes  in  redemption,  it  is  of  small  account 
what  he  believes  of  creation.  But  men  who  speak  so  rashly, 
overlook  the  fact  that  creation  is  the  basis  of  redemption, — 
that  there  must  be  man  and  man  fallen  before  there  can 
be  man  saved — and  that  the  belief  in  creation  depends  en- 
tirely upon  the  acknowledgment  of  Genesis,  as  a  historical 
document.  The  First  Book  of  the  Scripture  is  the  germ  of 
the  whole — the  root  out  of  which  grows  every  idea  that  is 
found  in  the  Bible.  It  is  not  possible  to  kill  the  germ — to 
hurt  the  root  without  destroying  the  tree. 

The  Book  of  Genesis  then,  occupies  a  position  of  pre- 
eminent value  and  sacredness.  With  what  an  awe  should 
we  unfold  its  pages.  But  for  this  Book,  man  would 
not  know  how  he  had  been  formed,  nor  for  what  purpose — 
he  would  not  know  that  he  was  in  the  image  of  God  created 
with  the  promise  and  the  prospect  of  an  everlasting  life. 
The  earlier  chapters  of  Genesis,  by  revealing  to  man  what 
manner  of  being  he  is,  and  what  are  his  relations  to  God, 
lay  the  foundations  of  all  true  piety — all  saving  knowledge 
and  all  real  and  genuine  religion. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  103 

"In  the  beginning,  God  created.''  This  destroys  the 
eternity  of  matter,  but — matter  once  created,  there  is  a 
choice  in  describing  its  progress. 

One  thing:  as  to  what  is  left  out.  A  chasm  of  ages  on 
ages  splits  between  the  first  verse  and  the  second.  "In  the 
beginning,  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  But  the 
earth  was  Tohu  vail  Vohu,  without  form  and  void. 

It  was  not  created  so,  for  God  creates  nothing  imperfect, 
and  the  prophet  Isaiah  expressly  says,  "He  created  it  not 
Tohu" — it  was  not  created  without  form  and  void.  Then 
there  had  been  a  change  and  a  lapse  in  it. 

Here,  then,  between  the  first  and  second  verses,  comes 
in  the  history  and  fall  of  angels.  That  must  be  passed  by 
for  the  present.  Undoubtedly  God  could  have  stopped  to 
describe  the  heavens — angels  and  archangels,  cherubim  and 
seraphim,  thrones  and  principalities  and  powers — the  man- 
ner and  the  reason  of  Satan's  fall  and  how  he  drew  legions 
after  him  into  the  abyss,  plunging  our  solar  system,  his 
special  province,  into  chaos. 

But  to  have  stopped  on  this  would  have  been  to  confuse 
everything.  We  do  not  put  syntax  into  an  A.  B.  C.  book 
— nor  the  Binomial  Theorem  into  the  first  pages  of  algebra. 
To  have  delayed  on  this  would  have  involved  the  use  of 
heavenly  language  which  we  could  not  understand,  or  if 
earthly  words  were  used,  our  thoughts  must  have  been 
wholly  diverted  from  ourselves,  our  fraility,  our  guilt  and 
need,  to  an  unwholesome  speculation  about  things  which 
do  not  concern  us. 

Because  the  Bible  is  addressed  to  the  inhabitants  of  earth, 
it  comes  down  to  earth  as  soon  as  possible,  and  speaks  to 
us  in  a  terrestrial  language.  If,  then,  it  gives  us  the  facts 
about  the  earth,  as  they  occurred, — and  if  it  states  them  ac- 
cording to  appearances  without  going  behind  the  appear- 
ances— if  it  speaks  of  the  sun's  rising  and  setting,  that  is 
only  common-sense,  it  is  only  speaking  as  the  wisest 
astronomers  among  us  do,  who  know  perfectly  well  that  the 
sun  does  not  rise  nor  set  at  all,  but  that  the  Earth  turns 
toward  and  away  from  him — and  yet  they  talk  of  sunrise 
and  of  sunset,  too. 

The  Bible,  to  be  useful  to  us,  must  speak  according  to 
appearances.    If  one  were  describing  a  panorama,  he  would 


io4  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

not  confuse  his  description  by  going  back  of  the  moving 
picture  to  the  machinery  which  was  working  behind  it,  nor 
proceed  to  tell  how  the  artist  came  to  conceive  the  thought 
of  a  panorama,  nor  when  nor  how  he  planned  the  part  and 
details  of  the  moving  scene.  A  person  coming  home  to  you 
and  attempting  to  give  you  some  distinct  notion  of  the  pano- 
rama itself  would  not  philosophize  but  would  start  with  the 
painting,  as  it  starts  and  follow  it,  in  memory  and  in  nar- 
rative, as  it  unrolls  before  his  eyes. 

Such  is  God's  method  in  describing  the  Creation — His 
simple,  sublime  and  common-sense  method — a  method  in- 
volving the  soundest  philosophy — if  we  wish  to  employ  such 
a  word. 

For  suppose  that,  instead  of  giving  us  a  popular  and  easy 
book,  God  had  set  forth  to  give  us  an  abstract  and  scientific 
one, — from  what  point  of  observation  shall  He  speak?  Shall 
He  start  from  the  sun  and  tell  us  that  the  earth  is  a  globe, 
and  give  us  its  relations  to  the  sun?  Or  shall  He  go  back 
of  and  above  the  sun  and  speak  from  Alcyone  and  tell  us  all 
about  other  solar  systems  and  their  circulations  in  the 
heavens  ?  Shall  He  speak  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  intelligible 
to  the  age  of  Shem,  or  of  Ptolemy,  or  of  Copernicus  or  to 
that  of  some  later  and  future  astronomer  who  shall  have 
discovered  more  than  they  knew? 

Besides :  where,  in  all  this,  were  a  revelation  concerning 
God  Himself,  and  our  relations  to  Him  and  especially  as 
fallen  creatures  who  need  to  be  saved? 

As  De  Ouincy  has  suggested,  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible for  any  messenger  from  God  to  have  descended  to 
the  communication  of  mere  worldly  scientific  truth. 

First.  Because  such  a  descent  would  have  degraded  and 
neutralized  his  mission  by  pandering  to  profitless  and  dis- 
sipating curiosity. 

Again :  it  would  have  raised  disputes  in  which  all  spiritual 
truth  would  have  been  lost.  Suppose  the  speaker  to  have 
made  the  statement  that  the  earth  is  moving  at  the  rate  of 
one  thousand  miles  an  hour, — one  man  cries  out,  "Ridicu- 
lous— I  do  not  feel  it  move."  A  discussion  begins  which 
puts  a  pause  to  anything  further.  The  inspired  speaker 
or  writer  is  ruined  with  his  audience  by  stating  a  scientific 
truth  in  advance  of  them.  He  feeds  them  with  meat  and  not 
with  milk  which  thev  are  able  to  bear. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  105 

Then,  again :  The  Bible  must  not  teach  anything  which 
man  can  teach  himself.  A  Revelation  from  God  is  given 
to  tell  us — not  what  we  do  not  yet  know,  but  what  we  can- 
not, without  it,  by  any  possibility,  find  out. 

What  we  can  find  out  by  study,  investigation  and  dis- 
covery, God  leaves  us  to  find  out.  That  is  His  wise  arrange- 
ment for  enlarging  and  developing  our  powers.  Nor  will 
He  interfere  with  that  arrangement.  He  will  not  come  into 
the  world  to  tell  us  about  astronomy,  steam,  electricity  and 
chemical  elements.  We  must.,  for  ourselves,  invent  the  tele- 
scope— the  condensing  cylinder — the  battery,  the  retort. 
God  will  not  dishonor  Himself  by  descending  into  the  arena 
of  science  to  make  Himself  man's  rival  and  to  contend  with 
him — so  to  say — "for  His  own  prizes.1"  A  Revelation  has 
not  come  into  the  world  for  the  purpose  of  showing  to  in- 
dolent men  what,  by  faculties  already  given,  they  may  show 
to  themselves,  but,  to  shine  in  upon  their  moral  darkness 
and  disclose  things  wholly  supernatural  and  beyond  the  ken 
or  reach  of  human  powers, — facts,  like  the  Trinity — In- 
carnation— Salvation,  and  Eternal  Justice  burning  to  the 
depthlessness  of  hell. 

So,  then,  to  do  us  any  good,  the  Bible  must  speak  to  men 
on  earth  in  a  terrestrial  language  and,  beginning  with  the 
plain  statement  of  necessary  facts,  go  straight  forward, 
leading  man — with  light  enough  from  the  very  first  to  save 
him,  on  into  the  vast  disclosures  of  the  Scheme  of  Grace, 
as  he  is  able  to  bear  them. 

This  is  the  Common-Sense  of  the  First  Chapter  of 
Genesis — The  fact  of  an  instantaneous  and  perfect  crea- 
tion is  stated. 

Then— omitting  the  fall  of  angels,  with  the  catastrophe 
which  it  involved  to  our  earth,  and  the  satanic  forms  of 
Saurians  and  other  horrible  reptiles  into  which  the  fallen 
angels  were  cast, — the  second  verse  in  contrast  takes  up  the 
earth  in  collapse  and  in  six  days  builds  it  up  again.  The 
Hebrew  verb,  bara,  "to  create  from  nothing,"  is  used  in  the 
first  verse,  but  in  all  the  succeeding  verses,  with  two  re- 
markable exceptions — the  creation  of  animal  life  on  the 
fifth  day,  and  the  creation  of  the  human  soul  on  the  sixth — 
another  verb,  which  signifies  "to  modify"  or  "shape,"  is  con- 


io6  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

stantly  employed.  God  creates  only  at  crises  and  from 
necessity.  Then  He  revamps  and  moulds  to  higher  forms, 
and  varied  uses.  So  we  read,  in  the  first  verse,  bara,  "He 
created,"  but,  afterward,  asah,  "He  made  or  stretched  out 
the  firmament,"  and  so  on. 

As  to  the  days  of  Genesis  I.,  there  is  no  geology  in  them 
— that  is  to  say,  there  are  no  ages  upon  ages  of  Silurian  and 
other  changes.  Whatever  geological  phenomena  we  may 
not  refer  to  the  flood,  and  it  will  no  doubt  largely  account 
for  them, — whatever  other  cataclysms  and  melting  of  the 
rocks,  and  whatever  reptilian  age  there  may  have  been, 
occurs  between  the  first  and  second  verses  of  the  chapter. 
There,  in  the  split  chasm  and  in  the  silence,  which  God 
Himself  has  left  unfilled,  Geology  has  all  the  room  it  wants 
in  which  to  work. 

As  to  the  length  of  the  Creation  days.  Men  have  stoutly 
contended  that  they  were  not  days — that  the  Hebrew  yom 
does  not  mean  days,  but  indefinite  periods. 

In  reply,  it  is  easy  for  the  Christian  scholar  to  say :  The 
word  yom  might  possibly  mean  an  indefinite  period,  if  there 
were  any  necessity  or  call  for  this — since  "one  day  is,  with 
the  Lord,  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one 
day."  But  there  is  no  necessity,  but  great  confusion,  in 
making  the  Genesis  days  each  of  them  one  thousand  years 
long: 

i.  In  the  first  place  there  is  the  "evening"  and  the 
"morning" — the  sunset  of  the  first  day  and  the  sunrise  of 
the  next  described.  Diurnal  days  are  twenty-four  hours, 
not  one  thousand  years  long. 

2.  No  solid  reason  whatever  appears  why  the  word 
"day"  should  be  taken  or  explained  in  a  figurative,  meta- 
phorical sense.  If  God  meant  "indefinite  periods,"  there  is 
a  Hebrew  word  for  it.  If  He  meant  years  He  could  easily 
have  said  "years,"  or  "centuries,"  or  "millenniums,"  or 
"eons."  If  He  said  "days,"  He  means  days — He  means  us 
to  get  that  impression. 

3.  The  work  of  reconstruction  could  have  been  in- 
stantaneous— light,  darkness,  sea,  land,  plants,  animals  and 
man  might  have  been  brought  into  being  at  once,  had  God 
willed  it.     Why  not,  then,  in  successive  stages,  marked  by 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  107 

revolutions  of  the  globe?  It  is  not  said,  in  Genesis  I.,  that 
the  present  arrangement  of  our  world,  as  a  suitable  place 
for  man,  was  a  work  of  creation  or  making  out  of  nothing. 
It  is  distinctly  said  that  "in  the  beginning,  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,"  and  that  afterward,  in  six  days  He 
made  material  and  created  things  to  assume  their  present 
form.  A  man  may  make  a  table  or  a  sofa  in  six  days,  but 
no  one  supposes  he  made  the  wood  in  six  days. 
On  the  first  day  the  earth  was  without  form,  but  the 
materials  for  rearrangement  were  there.  On  entering  a 
foundry,  we  often  see  a  large  number  of  broken  pieces  of 
machinery  ready  to  be  recast  into  different  shapes  and  ma- 
chines from  what  they  were  before.  So  with  the  earth  in 
chaos  on  the  first  day.  All  the  forms  of  the  preceding 
plan  had  been  broken  up,  awaiting  the  word  which  was  to 
call  them  afresh  into  shape  and  beauty.  The  materials  for 
the  re-arrangement  were  there — then' in  six  days  the  re-ar- 
rangement was  completed. 

In  six  literal,  natural  days,  for: 

4.  If  the  Sun,  which  had  been  obscured  before  by  dark- 
ness and  mephitic  vapors,  appeared  again  the  fourth  day, 
then  the  first  three  days  were  common,  ordinary  days, 
and  then,  too,  the  fifth,  the  sixth,  and  the  seventh.     And, 

5.  It  would  have  been  impossible  to  guard  the  keeping 
of  the  Fourth  Commandment  on  any  other  than  a  twenty- 
four-hour  basis.  God  commands  us  to  keep  the  Sabbath 
because  He  kept  it, — not  because  He  rested  for  a  thousand 
years  after  creating  Adam,  before  He  did  anything  else, — 
leaving  Adam  and  Eve  one  thousand  years  in  Paradise, — 
and  not  because  He  is  indefinitely  keeping  it  now,  but  be- 
cause He  actually  and  definitely  kept  it  then  and  caused 
Adam  and  Eve  and  all  the  animals  and  all  creation  to  keep 
it  as  the  last  and  fitting  finale — when  He  had  finished  His 
work. 

Now,  take  it  the  other  way,  and  read  the  Fourth  Com- 
mandment in  the  critical  light :  "Remember  the  seventh  in- 
definite period  to  keep  it  holy.  Six  indefinite  periods  shalt 
thou  labor  and  do  all  thy  work,  but  the  seventh  indefinite 
period  thou  shalt  not  do  any  work,  thou  nor  thy  son  nor 
thy  daughter,  .  .  .  for,  in  six  indefinite  periods  the 
Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  and  all  that  in  them 


108  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

is,  and  rested  the  seventh  period,  wherefore  the  Lord 
blessed  the  seventh  indefinite  period  and  hallowed  it" — That 
is  to  say,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  Sabbath  of  twenty- 
four  hours  and  the  Commandment  placed  as  the  very  key- 
stone and  decalogue  is  shown  an  absurdity !  But, 

6.  The  controversy  concerning  the  Sabbath,  which  com- 
menced with  the  apostasy  and  has  continued  ever  since, 
was  foreseen  before  the  creation  and  it  was  for  that  very 
reason,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  that  the  six  days  of 
twenty-four  hours  each,  were  made  the  divisions  of  the 
Genesis  week.  "In  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and 
earth,  the  sea  and  all  that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh 
day,  wherefore,  the  Lord  blessed  the  Sabbath  day  and 
hallowed  it."  In  confirmation  of  this,  we  find  the  Lord 
saying:  "Verily,  My  Sabbaths  ye  shall  keep  for  it  is  a  sign 
between  Me  and  you  throughout  your  generations.  Six 
days  may  work  be  done,  but  in  the  seventh  is  the  Sabbath 
of  rest  holy  unto  the  Lord.  It  is  a  sign  between  Me  and 
the  children  of  Israel  forever.  For  in  six  days  the  Lord 
made  heaven  and  earth,  and  on  the  seventh  day  He  rested." 
The  Sabbath  was  instituted  in  Paradise  and  ever  since  has 
been  a  sign  and  a  testimony  that  in  the  six  natural  days 
preceding  its  institution  the  Lord  was  working  and  that  He 
rested  on  the  consecrated  seventh  day. 

7.  The  Sabbath  Law  founded  on  Genesis  I.  lies  in  the 
very  constitution  of  moral  being.  God  has  so  adjusted  man 
and  nature  that  one-seventh  of  our  time  must  be  given  to 
Him,  or  the  world  goes  to  ruin.  Heathenism  depends  on 
getting  away  from  this  law.  Heathenism  has  no  sabbath, 
and  heathenism  speaks  its  own  condemnation.  True  reli- 
gion depends  on  getting  back  to  the  sabbath.  So  far  from 
being  an  appendage  to  the  decalogue,  the  Fourth  Com- 
mandment is  basal.  It  is  the  center  and  root.  If  there  be 
no  periodic  and  appointed  time  of  rest,  then  there  can  be 
no  proper  worship  of  God — no  general  agreement  as  to  any 
time ;  and  no  proper  opportunity  in  which,  apart  from 
worldly  cares,  to  consider  what  is  due  to  God  and  what  is 
due  to  man.  Idolatry  goes  with  the  abolition  of  the  sabbath, 
and  disobedience,  murder  and  uncleanness  go  with  the 
abolition  of  the  sabbath.  On  the  Fourth  Commandment 
hangs  the  whole  Law.  It  is  fundamental — so  fundamental 
as  to  be  the  ground-work  of  everything. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  109 

God  only  knows  the  exact  proportion  of  time  which  we 
shouM  offer  as  a  tribute  to  Him.  He  requires  the  one- 
seventh  part  of  our  lives.  He  has  fixed  the  proportion  as 
He  has  fixed  seven  notes  in  music — seven  colors  in  the 
spectrum — seven  wave-beats  in  light  and  in  the  ocean.  The 
number  seven,  called  by  the  fathers  aeiparthenos,  "always 
a  Virgin,"  follows  the  Lamb  whithersoever  He  goeth.  It 
is  the  Lord's  Day  and  He  made  it  and  we  will  rejoice  in  it 
and  be  glad. 

It  is  a  day — -not  a  century.  How  could  a  dying  creature 
work  six  centuries  and  then  do  nothing  for  a  hundred 
years?  It  is  a  day— not  a  year — how  much  more  suitable 
for  man,  frail  transitory  pilgrim  here,  to  have  rest  often — 
than  to  work  incessantly  six  years  and  then  do  nothing! 

The  First  Chapter  of  Genesis  lies  at  the  bottom  of  every- 
thing. It  founds  creation  on  God,  and  religion  on  the  Sab- 
bath. Take  away  the  first — creation,  and  you  have  chaos. 
Not  perfection,  but  chaos,  and  chaos  without  a  fall — unac- 
countable chaos — call  it  atoms — call  it  fire  mist — swell  out 
your  pomposity  and  call  it  the  Nebular  Hypothesis — in  Eng- 
lish, "the  Nebular  Guess," — Call  it  what  you  please — it  is 
something  without  a  First  Cause.  It  is  rank  heathen  specula- 
tion and  darkness.  Take  away  the  second — the  sabbath, 
and  there  is  no  meeting-ground  on  which  to  worship,  and 
the  knowledge  of  God,  even  if  a  God  be  granted,  is  lost. 

The  second  Chapter  of  Genesis  makes  a  transition.  It 
passes  not  onlv  from  the  material  creation  to  the  moral 
creation,  but  from  God,  as  abstract,  to  Go  1  in  touch  with 
man  and  in  covenant. 

This  involves, 

r.     A  chancre  in  the  Divine  Name. 

2.     The  Nobility  of  Man  as  created.    And. 

1.     A  change  in  the  Divine  Name. 

On  reading  the  First  Chapter,  one  will  have  noticed  that 
the  uniform  word  for  the  Almighty  is  "God."  But  when 
we  come  to  the  Second  Chapter  of  Genesis  another  title 
is  introduced.  It  is  no  longer  Elohim,  "God,"  but  Jehovah 
Elohitn,  "LoRD-God" 

The  critics  have  seized  upon  this  to  assert  two  different 


no  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

documents,  by  different  writers, — one  of  which  they  call 
the  "Elohistic,"  document,  and  the  other  the  "Jehovistic," 
— their  aim  being  to  prove  that  Moses  was  not  the  only 
writer  of  Genesis. 

The  difficulty  with  Higher  Criticism  is  that  it  disbelieves 
in  advance  and  the  reason  of  this  too  frequently  is  that  it 
is  working  with  a  brain  whose  crooked  and  vapid  conclu- 
sions are  guided  by  a  heart  averse  to  God — at  enmity  with 
God  and  working  every  way  to  get  rid  of  Him.  It  is  re- 
markable that  the  only  thing  which  God  claims  of  man  is  his 
heart — a  humble,  docile,  teachable  spirit.  It  is  by  this — i.  e., 
through  a  right  and  proper  instinct  in  him,  that  all  just  con- 
ceptions and  explanations  of  Scripture  will  be  attained. 

Now,  to  a  simple,  child-like,  appreciative  faith,  this 
change  from  "God'  to  "Lord  God"  is  most  significant  and 
congruous  and  beautiful.  "God,"  the  abstract  God  of  na- 
ture— the  material,  is  not  the  God  of  man — the  moral.  And 
so,  as  Moses  advances  to  this  moral,  he  reveals  a  more  inti- 
mate and  tender  side  of  the  Divine  character.  The  word 
"Lord''  is  employed — a  word  which  means  Owner,  Posses- 
sor— One  who  treasures  and  cherishes,  One  whose  affec- 
tions are  centered  upon  and  wrapt  up  in  what  is  to  be  made. 
Before,  it  was  creation  in  power, — now  it  is  creation  in  love 
and  the  word  changes  from  "God"  to  "Lord" — a  gracious, 
sovereign,  Preserver,  Protector  and  Benefactor. 

Let  me  go  even  further  here,  and  suggest  that  the  word 
"Lord"  may  refer  to  the  Second  Person  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
who  at  this  point  discloses  Himself.  God  the  Father  has 
been  seen  by  no  man,  but  God  the  Son  constantly  appears 
as  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament — the  Angel  or  the 
Messenger  Who  is  the  Lord — the  Word  by  Whom  were 
created  all  things. 

It  is  wonderfully  glorious  to  glimpse  the  shadow  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  thus  thrown  upon  the  foreground  in  the  crea- 
tion of  man.  How  near  to  us  we  find  Him  away  back 
among  the  trees  of  the  Garden.  How  spontaneously  rise  to 
our  lips  the  words  so  familiar 

"Jesus,    Thy    name    I    love 
All  other  names  above, 
Jesus,  my  Lord!" 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  in 

See  then  a  reason  for  the  change  in  these  words  as  we 
pass  on  to  the  second  chapter.  See  how  consistent  Moses 
is — and  why  should  he  not  be  consistent?  Modern  Ex- 
egetes  may  contend  that  several  writers  have  shared  in  the 
composition  of  Genesis,  but — apart  from  the  absurdity  of  a 
mosaic  which  is  not  Mosaic,  the  ordinary  Christian  will 
never  consent  to  lose  Moses, — the  man  with  an  unparalleled 
public — with  an  unparalleled  vocation  and  unparalleled  en- 
dowments— the  man  endorsed  by  Christ  Himself  as  its 
author,  from  under  the  foundation,  of  the  book.  The  Book 
depends  on  Moses — on  his  authority  and  name.  Moses 
wrote  the  Pentateuch — the  whole  Pentateuch  and  the 
Pentateuch  as  a  whole.  We  must  either  so  receive  it,  or 
be  driven  finally  to  reject  it  all — from  Genesis  to  Deute- 
ronomy. 

2.  It  is  by  this  admirable  introduction,  this  significant 
alteration  of  the  Divine  Name,  that  we  are  led  to  appre- 
hend the  true  nobility  of  man  as  the  offspring,  the  product 
of  a  Divine  forethought  and  affection.  It  was  the  creation 
of  a  being  having  a  Divine  element, — it  was  the  creafion 
of  a  perfect  being, — it  was  the  creation  of  something 
responsible. 

(i)  It  was  the  creation  of  a  being  having  a  Divine  ele- 
ment. 

It  is  not  easy  to  rise  to  this  conception  in  our  thoughts  at 
once,  and  because  the  Divine  element  has  been  so  sadly  lost 
by  us  in  the  fall.  "The  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God.  neither  can  he  know  them,  because 
they  are  spiritually  discerned.''  And  it  is  a  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  that  we  have  fallen,  that  we  figure  Adam 
as,  at  most,  a  blithesome,  innocent  child  of  nature,  a  sort  of 
handsome  or  unhandsome  savage.  Whereas,  a  sound  re- 
flection would  teach  us  that  a  being  able  and  warranted  to 
hold  communion  with  the  Great  First  Cause  of  all  things, 
must  stand,  ipso  facto,  on  an  elevation  vastly  higher  than 
that  of  the  greatest  men  of  any  succeeding  economy — that 
he  must  see  light  in  God's  light  and  be  himself,  a  little  god 
reflecting  God  and  surveying  life  and  the  world  from  a 
vantage  ground  far  loftier  than  that  of  our  supremest 
genius. 

Man  was  an  immediate  creation,  the  recipient  of  a  Divine 


ii2  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

nature  and  of  a  higher  Divine  nature  even  than  the  angels. 
So  that  there  is  no  link  between  man  and  the  animal  such  as 
fond  and  foolish  evolutionists  have  dreamed.  I  know  that 
it  has  been  asserted  that  the  monkey  is  the  embryo  human 
— so  that  if  you  keep  a  baboon  long  enough  it  will  develop 
itself  into  a  man.  But  this  is  to  imagine  that  an  ape  can 
lift  itself  into  a  Divine  nature  and  become  god-like.  A 
fancy  not  only  absurd,  but  profane.  The  man  who  makes 
himself,  in  thought,  an  ape,  is  guilty  of  sacrilege.  He  sins 
against  the  Temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  So  patent  is  this 
that  Professor  Virchow,  the  foremost  of  German  scientists, 
has  said:  "I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  conception  that 
man  emerged  from  the  animal — for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not 
one  link  of  transistion  has  ever  been  found."  Below  the 
lowest  limit  in  man  there  drops  a  gulf  that  is  infinite. 

Besides :  if  man  was  once  a  beast,  he  may  become  bestial 
again — since  nothing  is  easier  than  to  relapse,  to  fall  back- 
ward. An  outlook  sufficiently  appalling,  one  would  sup- 
pose, to  make  even  error  see  that  it  has  overshot  itself. 

And  further :  the  uniqueness  of  nobility  in  man  appears 
in  the  position  which  he  was  to  occupy  here  below.  God 
had  already  made  the  earth  and  formed  its  living  tenantry, 
but  there  still  lacked  the  Crown  and  Capital,  the  ruler  and 
the  priest  of  all.  Man  must  be  made  for  God,  since  earth 
was  made  for  man, — for  man  to  control  it — to  stand  with 
his  hand  upon  the  tiller  and  to  steer  the  floating  orb  on  to  its 
physical  and  moral  destiny.  What  sort  of  a  being  must 
that  be — the  Eve  of  creation  to  see  the  Invisible  who  gov- 
erns it — the  Ear  of  creation  to  hear  and  to  obey  His  bid- 
ding— the  High  Priest  of  creation,  to  gather  in  his  censer 
and  to  offer  up  the  incense  of  its  varied  and  united  worship? 
What  wonder  that  we  read  that  God,  so  to  say,  imparted 
Himself  to  him — that  what  He  would  not  stoop  to  do  to 
an  animal.  He  stoops  to  do  to  a  man,  when,  kissing  him 
upon  his  lips,  He  breathes  into  his  nostrils  the  ineffable 
nishamah,  making  him  immortal  as  God! 

That  brings  us  to  notice, 

(2)  The  Creation  of  man  was  that  of  a  perfect  being. 
Not  of  a  being  confirmed  in  holiness,  but  of  a  being  holy, 
although  unconfirmed.     It  was  the  beautiful  Vase  of  the 


THE   DOCTRINES    OF    GRACE.  113 

Potter  finished,  but  with  its  clay  not  yet  porcelain — its  colors 
not  burned  in. 

Adam  had  all  the  perfection  he  would  ever  have,  or  could 
have — only  he  must  stay  what  he  was. 

As  a  moral  being,  he  was  perfect  in  that  highest  of  all 
perfection — Insight,  Intuition, — the  faculty  by  which  the 
soul,  illumined  by  the  light  of  God,  has  an  immediate  per- 
ception of  character  as  moral. 

We  find  traces  of  this  wonderful  endowment  still,  especi- 
ally in  women  and  little  children.  God  has  given  woman 
a  defense  against  moral  evil  in  her  instinct.  She  need  not 
be  deceived.  She  must  blind  herself  to  be  deceived.  The 
instinctive  knowledge  of  character  manifested  by  the 
youngest  child  is  also  a  proof  of  this  innate  inheritance — 
that  singular  attraction  to  or  repulsion  from  a  stranger 
which  a  child  will  show  even  before  it  can  speak. 

Adam  had  this  in  the  highest  degree.  No  cloud  of  sin 
shut  out  the  light  of  God  from  his  soul,  but,  full  of  light, 
and  turning  light  on  everything  around  him,  he  could  in- 
stinctively discern  the  Mind  of  God  in  all  His  works  and 
appropriately  name  and  describe  them  all,  in  agreement 
with  the  purpose  of  God  in  creating  them. 

This  is  the  deep  spiritual  meaning  of  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  verses,  where  we  are  told  that  "the  Lord  God 
brought  every  beast  of  the  field,  and  every  fowl  of  the  air 
to  Adam  to  see  what  he  would  name  them,  and  whatsoever 
Adam  called  every  living  creature,  that  was  the  name  there- 
of,"— so  clear  was  his  intuition  that  he  made  no  mistake. 

Adam,  then,  knew  the  serpent  and  the  fearful  danger 
which  lay  below  that  subtlety — that  finesse  which,  while  still 
innocent,  is  yet  so  close  to  falseness,  to  obliquity,  to  twist 
and  to  deceit,  as  to  become  the  aptest  instrument  for  Satan. 

Adam  perfectly  knew  the  serpent  as  he  passed  him  in 
review  among  the  other  animals.  And,  endowed  with  this 
perception  of  character,  Eve  would  have  at  once  seen  into 
that  of  her  tempter,  had  her  eyes  not  been  occupied  with 
the  beauty  of  the  deadly  fruit. 

Man  w-as  made  perfect.  His  body  was  of  dust,  but  it  was 
the  efflorescence  of  dust,  just  as  the  diamond  is  made  of 
charcoal,  but  is  yet  the  diamond.  His  soul  was  made  in  the 
likeness   of   God — immortal   as   God   is — holy  as   God   is — 


ii4  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

happy  as  God  is, — in  all  respects,  in  intellect,  imagination, 
feelings,  will,  conformed  to  God. 

And — of  this  perfection,  his  external  appearance  was  an 
expression  not  only  in  the  loftiness  of  his  brow  and  the 
majesty  of  his  mien,  but  in  the  halo  of  light  thrown  about 
him.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  words :  "They  were  naked 
and  were  not  ashamed.  They  wore  no  clothing,  but  were 
not  therefore  without  effulgence  shining  from  them  and 
around  them  which  wrapped  them  in  a  radiant  and  trans- 
lucent cloudy  robe — and  in  a  certain  lovely  way  obscured 
their  outlines.  It  is  contrary  to  nature  and  it  is  repulsive  to 
us  that  anything  should  be  unclothed  and  absolutely  bare. 
Each  bird  has  its  plumage  and  each  animal  its  coat,  and 
there  is  no  beauty  if  the  covering  be  removed.  Strip  the 
most  beautiful  bird  of  its  feathers,  and,  though  the  form 
remain  unchanged,  we  no  longer  admire  it. 

We  conceive,  then,  that  artists  are  wholly  at  fault  and 
grossly  offend  against  purity  when  they  paint  the  human 
form  unclothed  and  plead  as  an  excuse  the  case  of  Adam 
in  Eden.  They  fail  to  understand  the  wondrous  meaning 
of  the  passage.  Could  the  animals  in  all  their  splendid 
covering  coats  have  bowed  down  as  to  the  Vicegerents  of 
God, — before  beings  wholly  unclothed?  Should  Adam,  the 
Crown  and  the  King  of  Creation,  be  the  only  living  thing 
without  a  screen?  Impossible.  To  the  spiritual  sense  there 
certainly  is  a  hint  of  something  about  our  first  parents  that 
impressed  and  overawed  the  animal  creation  and  was  an 
all-sufficient  reason  why — so  far  from  being  ashamed,  they 
should  rather  be  in  danger  of  an  undue  exaltation. 

What  was  that  thing?  What,  in  the  light  of  other  Scrip- 
tures, could  it  have  been?  What,  but  that  shining  forth 
like  the  sun  which  describes  the  body  of  the  resurrection? 
If  the  face  of  Moses  so  shone  by  reflection  that  the  child- 
ren of  Israel  were  afraid  to  come  nigh  him, — how  much 
more  must  the  indwelling  Spirit  of  God  in  Adam  and  Eve 
have  flung  around  them  a  radiance  which  made  all  creation 
do  them  reverence  as  they  approached — beholding  in  them 
the  Image  and  likeness  of  the  Lord  God  Almighty — glori- 
ous in  brightness — shining  like  a  sun ! 

This  explains  the  expression,  "They  were  not  ashamed." 
It  also  explains  what  is  said  of  them  after  they  sinned: 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  115 

"They  ate  of  the  fruit  of  the  forbidden  tree,"  and  as  they 
ate,  the  light  within  them  dimmed  and  shone  out  no  more. 
Their  halo  had  vanished,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  of  righteous- 
ness which  had  been  to  them  a  covering  of  transcendent 
light  and  purity  withdrew  and  they  saw  and  felt  that  they 
were  stript  and  bare  and  naked,  and,  shivering  in  the  un- 
clothing, they  feared  and  fled  away  into  the  thick  woods 
to  hide  there. 

Man  thus  created  perfect,  had  perfect  surroundings.  He 
was  in  the  enjoyment  of  two  things,  society  and  abundance. 
Adam  had  an  equal  and  a  kindred  spirit  to  be  his  com- 
panion, and  to  both  it  was  said :  "Be  fruitful  and  multiply 
and  replenish  the  earth  and  subdue  it."  Go  on  from  better 
to  better  and  from  success  to  success.  These  two  things, 
society  and  success,  are  the  sum  of  earthly  good. 

But, 

(3)  The  creation  of  man  was  that  of  something  respon- 
sible. That  is  the  higher  meaning  of  the  Garden  and  the 
Tree.  For  is  not  man  set  before  us  as  a  being  whose  perfec- 
tion consists  in  exercising  self-control  and  in  accepting 
limits?  The  fish  of  the  sea — the  birds  of  heaven  roamed  at 
their  will,  through  ocean  and  through  air;  the  beasts  grazed 
where  they  would,  and  this  unrestrained  life  of  theirs 
showed  that  they  were  far  removed  from  God  and  from  His 
covenant. 

But  now :  When  God  creates  a  sovereign  of  the  world  in 
His  own  likeness — one  who  is  to  be  His  Vicegerent,  one 
who  is  to  respond  to  the  mind  of  God  by  willing  as  He  wills 
and  accepting  His  limitations — a  Garden  is  fenced  in,  and 
man,  though  lord  of  the  whole  earth,  is  not  permitted  to 
roam  recklessly  at  will,  but  is  set  to  fix  the  center  and  the 
nucleus  of  outer  circles  of  dominion  in  a  holy  and  a  settled 
home.  He  is  to  begin  with  a  garden  and  prove  that  he  can 
dress  it  and  keep  it.  For  if  a  man  know  not  how  to  rule  his 
own  house,  how  shall  he  control  the  destinies  of  a  Church 
which  is  to  fill  the  world?  The  fruits  of  the  Garden  also 
were  to  be  man's  for  food,  but  there  must  be  a  limit  also 
to  his  appetite.    Of  one  tree  he  was  not  to  eat. 

He  was  thus  confronted  by  law.  The  fear  of  the  Lord, 
which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  was  implanted  in  him, 


n6  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

and  it  was  upon  his  subjection  to  and  dependence  upon  the 
Divine  will  that  his  future  was  suspended. 

With  these  sublime  Chapters — the  opening  words  of  the 
inspired  Volume — before  us,  let  us  now  draw  from  them 
certain  corollaries  and  conclusions — and, 

i.  How  can  we  know  about  the  origin  of  things  save 
as  we  are  taught  by  One  who  was  in  existence  before  them? 
As  no  creature  can  rise  above  its  experience,  so  no  cerature 
can  knozv  creation.  We  cannot  have  the  thought  or  know 
the  fact  save  as  we  receive  it  on  testimony  which  is  Divine. 
That  makes  it  that,  from  the  very  first,  the  Bible,  trans- 
cending all  other  books,  comes  down  from  above,  bringing 
its  own  light.  It  makes  it  that  we  must  receive  the  revela- 
tion as  from  God  or  grope  forever  in  darkness. 

2.  Creation — a  fact,  settles  and  moulds  all  our  theology. 
If  we  believe  that  by  an  evolution  of  mere  nature,  there  can 
be  the  spiritual,  we  shall  have  a  religion  of  reforms,  of  ef- 
forts, of  self-manufacture,  of  endeavor  to  work  the  "old 
man"  over  into  the  "new."  But  if  we  believe  that  the  devel- 
opment of  the  old  man,  however  strenuous,  will  be  only 
worse  and  worse;  then  we  are  thrown  back  on  God.  If  we 
believe  that  nature  is  one  thing  and  grace  another  and  that 
the  natural  man  cannot  receive  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of 
God ;  then  we  shall  see  how  perfectly  in  accord  with  the 
doctrine  of  an  instant  creation  is  the  doctrine  of  an  instant 
regeneration — in  which  something  is  given  and  infused  and 
imparted  which  was  not  in  the  man  before.  Then  we  shall 
see  how  consistent  with  God's  work  from  the  beginning,  is 
the  statement  of  the  apostle.  "If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he 
is  kainc  Ictisis  a  new  creation — old  things  have  passed  away; 
behold  all  things  are  become  new." 

Evolution  is  the  blank  denial  and  destruction  of  the 
Christian  system.  Neither  in  whole,  nor  in  part,  will  ortho- 
dox men  ever  admit  a  development  anti-vital.  Conception, 
the  beginning  of  natural  life,  is  a  flash — the  soul,  a  direct 
impartation  from  God — a  creation  from  nothing.  So  is  the 
spiritual  life — the  Divine  nature, — it  is  something  formed 
out  of  the  breath  of  the  Eternal  God  and  breathed  into  my 
soul. 

3.  The  Bible  teaches  that  man  is  the  noblest  being  in  the 
universe.     That  there  is  no  possible  computation  of  what 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  117 

God  meant  for  him  and  means  for  him  yet, — first  to  control 
himself — then  the  garden  of  his  own  house — then  the 
world — then  the  universe.  Destiny  how  overwhelming! 
How  in  such  a  prospect  does  the  question  press  upon  me — 
"What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  shall  prefer  his  own  will — 
if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world — as  Adam  gained  the  apple 
in  his  way,  not  God's  way,  and  lose  his  own  soul?"   And, 

4.  The  Chapters  show  that  the  entire  controversy  between 
God  and  man  is  one  of  will  depending  upon  faith,  or  un- 
faith.  There  was  nothing  in  the  forbidden  tree  itself — 
whether  it  were  a  fig  tree  or  not — to  injure.  The  point  was, 
would  man  believe  God  and  obey  Him  simply  because  he 
was  told  to?  He  refused.  His  will  clashed  with  God's  and 
that  ended  it.  He  was  divided  from  God  and  God  could 
use  him  no  more. 

Here  looms  before  us, 

5.  The  Great  Principle  of  Faith.  "By  faith  we  under- 
stand that  the  worlds  were  made," — by  faith  we  understand 
the  new  birth  by  the  Spirit — by  faith  we  trust  in  Christ  and 
take  Him  as  the  Tree  of  Life.  Our  Lord  so  put  it  in  His 
interview  with  Nicodemus.  He  said,  "Ye  must  be  born 
again — a  mystery,"  and  then  He  pointed  to  the  Serpent  on 
the  pole.  And  St.  John  continues,  "Whosoever  believeth 
that  Jesus  is  Christ,  is  born  of  God."  Adam  lost  Paradise 
by  doubt;  we  recover  it,  in  grand  reversal,  by  a  faith  which 
overcomes  the  world. 

And,  if  this  be  so,  then  the  end  of  philosophy,  as  of  re- 
ligion, is  to  believe.  Then  the  highest  exercise  of  a  crea- 
ture's reason  is  to  receive  the  testimony  of  His  Creator,  and 
he  who  cannot  believe  gets  not  one  step  in  God's  direction. 
Then  faith  takes  God's  Word  as  true  and  does  not  recognize 
criticism — the  pulling  down  of  Revelation — as  any  proper 
department  of  knowledge.  Then  faith  is  positive  and  criti- 
cism a  halting  negation :  so  far  from  adding  anything,  it 
shows  itself  a  perishing  diminuendo — a  perpetual  substrac- 
tion,  the  attenuating  process  of  which  was  well  described 
by  three  cartoons  I  saw  the  other  day  and  underneath  them 
these  three  legends: 

First  Cartoon  and  First  Higher  Critic :    "The  Bible  in  its 


n8  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

present  mutilated  and  adulterated  state  needs  a  vast  amount 
of  work  to  make  it  serviceable." 

Second  Cartoon  and  Second  Higher  Critic :  ''It  is  a  mis- 
take to  cast  aside  so  much  of  ancient  lore.  All  it  needs  is 
to  be  scientifically  understood." 

Third  Cartoon  and  Third  Higher  Critic :  "I  have  dis- 
posed of  all  the  rest  of  the  Bible,  but  I  don't  see  anything 
the  matter  with  the  covers." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  119 

JONAH,  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  THE  TESTAMENTS. 

Luke  xi  :2g. 

"And  when  the  people  were  gathered  thick  together,  He  began 
to  say,  This  is  an  evil  generation,  they  seek  a  sign  and  there  shall 
no  sign  be  given  it,  but  the  sign  of  Jonas  the  prophet." 

Jonah  has  a  peculiar  place  among  the  prophets.  He  was 
a  very  early  prophet ;  in  fact  he  may  be  called  the  father 
of  prophecy,  since  he  is  the  oldest,  or  first  of  all  the  prophets 
who  have  left  writings  behind  them — his,  a  book  penned  by 
his  own  hand. 

The  book  is  so  unique ;  it  is  such  a  blending  of  the  super- 
natural with  the  familiar,  such  an  interposition  of  God  in 
events,  such  a  disclosure  of  human  nature  in  the  prophet — a 
book  so  profound  in  its  spiritual  mysteries,  so  progressive  in 
its  forecast  of  broader  horizons,  that,  small  as  it  is  in  its 
compass,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  Keystone  of  the  two  Testa- 
ments— one  wall  of  the  arch  of  Revelation,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, built  up  on  one  side  to  meet  it,  and  the  other  wall  of 
the  arch,  the  New  Testament,  built  up  on  the  other  side  to 
meet  it,  while,  at  the  point  of  junction,  it  drops  in,  wedge- 
like, to  bind  them  in  unison.  Jonah  clasps  Christ  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  Christ  clasps  Jonah  in  the  New. 

It  is  to  this  extraordinary  and  exceptional  character  of  the 
Book  of  Jonah  that  we  may  attribute  the  fact  that  in  all 
ages,  the  sharpest  and  most  skilful,  the  bitterest  and  most 
artfully  concealed  opposition  of  skeptical  rationalism  has 
been  arrayed  against  it. 

The  method  of  approach  has  usually  been  that  of  ridicule. 
There  is  just  enough  of  the  bizarre  in  the  stupendous  Mir- 
acle, around  which  the  Book  clusters,  to  provoke  a  sneer, 
and  suggest  an  excuse  for  stigmatizing  the  entire  narrative 
— as  a  minister,  in  high  position,  has  recently  ventured  to  do 
— as  a  fiction.  In  a  series  of  startling  sermons  on  the  play 
of  the  imagination  in  the  sacred  writings,  the  clergyman  re- 
ferred to  has  put  the  question — "Why  should  we  think  it  is 
inconsistent  with  a  reverence  for  the  Bible  as  an  inspired 
collection  of  literature — to  think  that  the  Book  of  Esther, 


120  THE   DOCTRINES   0E   GRACE. 

the  Book  of  Ruth,  much  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  and  the 
story  of  Jonah  and  the  great  fish  are  fiction?  It  is  a  matter 
of  no  concern  whatever  spiritually  whether  we  believe  a 
great  fish  swallowed  Jonah  or  not.  No  man  is  better  for 
believing  it ;  no  man  is  worse  for-  not  believing  it.  Nothing 
in  your  life  or  mine  depends  upon  the  opinions  we  entertain 
on  that  subject." 

Feeling  deeply,  as  I  do,  upon  the  subject  of  Divine  In- 
spiration ;  believing,  as  I  do,  that  the  honor  of  God,  as  well 
as  the  destiny  of  man  is  staked  upon  the  veracity  of  His 
every  word;  assured  as  I  am,  that,  if  Jonah  is  fiction,  the 
whole  volume  of  which  it  forms  a  part  is  fiction — more  than 
this,  convinced  as  I  am,  that  the  evil  wrought  by  any  attack 
whether  open,  or  more  covert  upon  the  integrity  of  Script- 
ure, is  in  proportion  to  the  eminence  of  the  man  who  pre- 
sumes to  shock  the  common  sentiment  by  making  that  attack 
— which,  if  made  within  the  Church,  is  calculated  to  do  ten- 
fold more  mischief  than  all  the  sneers  and  cavils  of  acknow- 
ledged infidels  and  enemies  outside — I  feel  called  upon,  so 
far  as  one  pulpit  at  least  is  concerned,  to  rebuke  and  repel 
it. 

Let  me  invite  you  again  to  a  review  of  this  remarkable 
Book,  the  Book  of  Jonah,  the  very  exceptional  character  of 
which  arrests  attention  and  awakens  an  expectancy  of  most 
important  spiritual  teaching. 

"Undoubtedly,"  said  the  great  Brooklyn  preacher,  "There 
are  some  in  this  audience  who  will  be  disturbed  in  their 
faith  by  the  suggestion  that  the  story  of  Jonah  and  the  Great 
Fish  is  a  fiction."  Precisely — then  why  disturb  their  faith? 
Why  breathe  the  poisonous  unholy  suggestion? 

The  question  of  the  Miracle  lies  at  the  base  of  the  Bible. 
Prove  its  miracles  false  and  the  foundation  is  out  from 
under,  the  superstructure  of  revelation  has  fallen. 

The  Bible  is  the  only  Book  in  the  world — claiming  to  be  a 
Divine  Revelation — which  professes  to  rest  upon  miracles. 
In  other  systems,  as  that  of  the  Zend-Avesta,  the  Koran,  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  miracles  hang  upon  them  and  are  their 
appendage.  They  do  not  make  salvation  depend,  as  the 
Bible  does,  on  belief  in  supernatural  facts  like  that  of  the 
incarnation  of  Christ,  a  miracle  without  which  our  redemp- 
tion were  impossible,  or  that  of  His  resurretion — of  which 
St.  Paul  says :    "If  Christ  be  not  risen,  if  the  Miracle  be  not 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  121 

a  fact,  then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is  also 
vain." 

To  deny  the  Miracle  then  is  to  deny  Revelation.  It  is  to 
shut  God  out  of  His  own  Book  and  out  of  His  universe.  A 
God  without  miracles  would  be  the  Miracle  of  miracles.  ''It 
is  a  superfluous  question,"  says  Funcke,  ''whether  God  can 
work  miracles,  or  whether  it  is  necessary  to  our  religious 
life  that  we  believe  in  a  God  who  works  miracles.  For  if 
we  have  a  God  who  cannot  work  them,  we  have  a  God  who 
is  not  living,  and,  if  we  have  a  God  who  is  not  living,  and 
able  to  communicate  with  men,  we  have  no  God  at  all.  The 
question  of  the  Miracle,  then,  is  not  secondary,  but  touches 
the  very  heart  of  religion."  Lessing,  whom  no  one  could  ac- 
cuse of  pietism,  said :  "He  who  despoils  religion  of  the 
things  surpassing  reason,  has  no  religion  any  more."  The 
infidel  Rousseau  exclaims:  "Can  God  work  miracles? 
The  question  is  absurd,  one  would  do  the  man  who  raises  it 
too  much  honor  to  answer  him,  he  should  be  sent  to  the  mad- 
house." 

Deny  the  miracle  in  Jonah,  and  you  deny  it  everywhere. 
Says  St.  Augustine,  Quod  aut  omnia  Divina  miracula  cre- 
dcnda  non  sunt,  aut  hoc,  cur  non  creditor,  causa  nulla  sit — 
"Either  all  Divine  miracles  are  to  be  rejected,  or  there  is 
no  reason  why  this  one  should  not  be  believed."  There  is 
nothing  more  improbable  in  it  than  in  the  splitting  of  the 
Red  Sea,  the  falling  of  the  walls  of  Jericho,  or  the  standing 
still  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  at  the  mandate  of  Joshua. 

"To  my  mind,"  says  Kelly,  "a  miracle,  although  no  doubt 
it  is  an  exertion  of  Divine  power,  and  entirely  outside  the 
ordinary  experience  of  man,  is  the  worthy  intervention  of 
God  in  a  fallen  world.  It  is  a  seal  given  to  the  truth,  in  the 
pitiful  mercy  of  God  who  does  not  leave  a  fallen  race  and 
lost  world  to  its  own  remediless  ruin.  So  far,  therefore, 
from  miracles  being  the  slightest  real  difficulty,  any  one  who 
knows  what  God  is  might  well  expect  Him  to  work  them  in 
such  a  world  as  this." 

Passing  from  these  preliminary  observations  let  me  make 
three  points : 

I.  Christ  Himself  stands  or  falls  with  the  Book  of  Jonah. 


122  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

II.  Jonah  in  his  person  and  experience  is  a  striking  illus- 
tration of  the  Doctrines  of  Grace, 

III.  Not  only  doctrine,  but  the  Practical  and  experimental 
in  religion  are  equally  conspicuous  in  this  great  Missionary 
Book. 

I.  Christ  Himself  stands  or  falls  with  the  Book  of  Jonah. 
This  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  He  singles  out  the  partic- 
ular point  of  greatest  difficulty  in  the  Book  as  the  pivotal 
sign  of  the  genuineness  of  His  claims,  and  applies  to  it  His 
own  Almighty  stamp  of  authority.  In  other  words,  He 
stakes  His  Divinity  upon  the  miracle  of  Jonah's  being  swal- 
lowed and  restored  by  the  fish.  So  that  if  the  Miracle 
is   false,  Christ  is. 

Three  times  our  Lord  refers  to  Jonah  in  the  Gospels, 
and  each  time  with  a  singular  distinctness.  In  Matt.  XII 139 
we  read,  "Then  certain  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  an- 
swered, saying,  Master,  we  would  see  a  sign  from  Thee — 
credentials  of  Thy  Messiahship  and  Heavenly  Commission!" 
"But  He  answered  and  said  unto  them,  An  evil  and  adulter- 
ous generation  seeketh  after  a  sign ;  and  there  shall  no  sign 
be  given  to  it,  but  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas.  For  as 
Jonas  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly ; 
so  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the 
heart  of  the  earth.  The  men  of  Nineveh  shall  rise  in  judg- 
ment with  this  generation  and  shall  condemn  it ;  because  they 
repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonas  and  behold  a  greater 
than  Jonas  is  here." 

"Plow  are  we  to  explain,"  says  an  acute  and  trenchant 
writer,  "how  are  we  to  explain  and  interpret  this  language 
of  our  Lord  in  His  references  to  Jonah  and  to  the  facts  of 
his  history?  He  calls  him  Jonah  the  prophet.  He  speaks 
of  his  confinement  in  the  belly  of  the  fish  as  a  sign 
(  to  dr/jusiov  )  a  real  miracle  like  His  own  death  and  burial. 
He  says  he  preached  in  Nineveh.  He  says,  the  people  re- 
pented, and  that  their  repentance  would,  on  the  judgment 
day,  condemn  the  impenitence  of  the  people  to  whom  He 
Himself  was  preaching.  He  says,  "Behold,  a  Greater  than 
Jonah  is  here."  What  way  is  there  of  evading  the  plain  and 
ordinary  meaning  of  such  expressions?  What  way  of  pre- 
venting, therefore,  a  direct  collision  on  these  points  between 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  123 

the  so  called  higher  criticism  and  the  authority  of  Jesus 
Christ?  Those  critics  who  in  explaining  this  book  relegate 
to  the  regions  of  fable,  dream  or  moral  fiction,  whatever  to 
their  natural  reason  seems  improbable,  whatever  they  think 
ought  not  to  have  happened,  whether  it  happened  or  not,  are 
they  not  really,  however  they  may  mean  it,  attempting  to 
sap  the  very  foundations  of  Christianity  ? 

See,  for  a  moment,  how  these  critics  put  the  matter.  "Can 
we  believe,"  say  they,  "that  the  foundations  of  a  super- 
natural religion,  of  a  religion  taking  hold  of  eternity,  can 
be  made  to  rest  upon  the  absolute  historical  accuracy  of  cer- 
tain alleged  material  facts?  upon  facts  often  trivial,  upon 
facts  even  preposterous  and  in  which  the  sharp  and  merry 
wits  of  men  have  found  only  what  is  grotesque  and  un- 
worthy of  God?  Shall  we  believe  that  a  spiritual  religion, 
a  religion  dealing  with  the  invisible,  a  religion  involving  high 
immortal  principles,  a  religion  of  holiness,  of  love,  and  of 
internal  consciousness  can  be  made  to  depend,  for  all  that 
it  is,  on  such  trifles,  such  facts — or  rather  such  fancies — as 
these?" 

This  kind  of  language  sounds  specious  enough,  but 
who  cannot  see  how  far  away  it  is  from  the  point?  There 
is,  indeed,  no  question  as  to  the  principles  of  religion.  They 
are  of  necessity  unchangeable  and  eternal — as  high  above 
the  facts  of  history  as  heaven  is  above  the  earth.  But 
then  what?  We  are  not  saved  by  principles  but  by 
a  Person.  Principles  did  not  die  on  the  Cross  for  us,  but 
Jesus  Christ,  who  claims  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  did.  Who 
cannot  see  that,  this  being  so,  everything  depends,  and  to 
the  minutest,  upon  Jesus  Christ?  If  He  may  be  mistaken 
in  His  facts,  and  in  a  whole  continuous  chain  of  them  com- 
pleting an  entire  chapter  of  history,  thinking,  Himself,  and 
asserting  that  this,  that  and  the  other  thing  occurred,  when 
the  story  was  nothing  other  or  better  than  fancy  and  fable 
and  fiction — in  fine,  "a  historical  novel" — where  is  the 
foundation  of  our  trust?  Does  it  not  rest  no  longer  on  the 
Omniscient  Son  of  God,  but  on  an  ignorant  man  and  un- 
wise one?  upon  a  man  more  credulous,  more  easily  imposed 
upon  than  are  our  sagacious  and  keen-sighted  critics  to-day? 

Or  take  the  only  other  and  darker  alternative.  If  He,  not 
mistaken,   but   knowing   and   well   aware   that   there   was 


124  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

nothing-  of  historical  truth  in  the  story,  deliberately  tells  it  as 
true,  where  again  is  the  foundation  of  our  trust?  Does  it 
not  rest  upon  an  Imposter,  a  liar,  i.  e.,  a  deliberate  Fraud? 

The  thing  then  touches  Christ.  It  vitally  touches  His 
honesty,  His  truthfulness,  His  foresight,  His  omniscience, 
His  wisdom,  His  Godhead.  //  Jonah  falls,  Christ  falls.  If 
Christ  falls,  Christianity  falls.  "If  the  foundations  be 
destroyed  what  can  the  righteous  do?" 

II.  Not  only  so,  not  only  does  Christ  Himself  stand  or 
fall  with  the  Book  of  Jonah,  but  Jonah,  in  his  person  and 
experience,  is  a  singular  and  Divinely  inspired  illustra- 
tion of  the  whole  scheme  of  redemption  involved  in  the 
Doctrines  of  Grace. 

The  Miracle  itself,  in  Jonah,  is  not  that  which  distin- 
guishes it  as  a  Book  from  all  others.  It  is  rather  the  amount 
and  the  kind  of  the  miracle.  Other  Books  contain  miracles, 
but  this  one,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  a  continuous  succes- 
sion of  surprises,  providences,  miracles  and  marvels  of  the 
most  unusual  description.  What  is  more  significant  still,  is 
that  these  marvels — while  they  appear  not  necessary  to  the 
practical  accomplishment  of  the  object  in  hand — which  is  to 
send  a  man  to  perform  an  errand  in  Nineveh — are,  as  we 
closely  look  at  them,   found  to  be, 

First — Tremendous  proofs  of  a  Divine  commission  and 
working.  To  this  very  day,  the  entire  coast  of  the  Levant 
from  Egypt  to  Constantinople — including  the  Grecian  Archi- 
pelago— abounds  with  legends,  such  as  the  rescue  of  Andro- 
meda from  a  sea  monster,  by  Perseus  near  the  rock  still 
pointed  out  at  Joppa.  The  fable  of  Hercules  swallowed  and 
cast  up  alive,  after  three  days,  by  a  fish,  while  laboring  to 
save  Hesione  the  daughter  of  Laomedon,  the  King  of  Troy, 
and  called,  for  that  exploit  'HpaxXiji  Tpitdnepos,  Hercules 
of  the  three  nights.  The  fable  of  Aia  saved  from  the  Dragon 
or  Sea  Serpent  at  Beirut  by  St.  George,  together  with  the 
emphasis  put  by  all  the  Mohammedan  world  on  the  story  of 
Jonah  which  occupies  the  tenth  chapter  of  the  Koran,  and 
especially  upon  the  prayer  of  Jonah,  which  the  Mohamme- 
dans regard  as  one  of  the  holiest  of  all  their  prayers  and 
frequently  use  in  their  devotions. 

This,  together  with  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  pic- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  125 

ture  of  Oannes  or  the  Fish-man  on  the  sculptures  unearthed 
at  Nineveh,  and  the  Assyrian  tradition  that  this  Fish-man 
was  sent  to  the  region  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  to  teach 
the  people  the  knowledge  and  the  fear  of  God — that  he 
came  up  from  the  sea  and  spake  with  man's  voice  the 
oracles  of  the  Almighty, — ■ 

This  congeries  of  myths  and  legends,  evidently  suggest- 
ed by  the  life  and  work  of  Jonah  and  the  impressions  left  by 
it,  gives  grand  and  solemn  confirmation  to  the  fact  that  God 
used  him  in  an  overwhelming  revelation  of  Himself.     But, 

Secondly — Not  only  did  God  stamp  Himself — His  Per- 
sonality, on  the  whole  heathen  world — as  by  no  other  agency 
before  the  coming  of  the  Lord — by  Jonah,  but  He  gave,  in 
Jonah,  a  complete  theology  in  object  lessons — including 
the  depravity  and  lost  condition  of  man ;  his  salvation  by  a 
substitute:  the  sovereignity  of  God  in  this  work — the  power 
of  an  irresistible  grace,  and  the  final  preservation  of  all  who 
put  their  trust  in  Him. 

Let  us  note  in  detail. 

The  depravity,  or  the  lost  condition  of  man.  Jonah  is, 
no  doubt,  a  child  of  God,  but  the  "flesh"  is  in  Jonah  and  that 
flesh  is  as  bad  in  him  as  in  any  man.  In  the  first  chapter,  we 
have  the  working  of  the  flesh  in  apostasy — we  have  Adam 
and  Eve  represented,  after  the  fall,  in  the  garden.  "And 
Jonah  rose  up  to  flee  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord — " 
"and  Adam  and  his  wife  hid  themselves  in  the  trees  of  the 
garden."  The  essence  of  all  the  depravity  there  is  in  the 
world  is  in  fleeing  from  God — in  refusing  like  Cain,  to 
listen.  In  doing  one's  own  wilful  will  and  becoming  a 
wanderer.  All  sins — all  recklessness — all  falseness — all 
spiritual  indifference  and  slumber — all  sleeping  in  the  stupor 
of  sin  are  included  in  one  definition — "Fleeing  from  God — 
without  God  and  without  hope  in  the  world."  Jonah  was 
disobedient.  God  commanded  him  and  he  disobeyed  God. 
Jonah  was  self-willed.  He  found  a  ship  going  to  Tarshish. 
He  found  it  himself.  God  did  not  find  it  for  him.  It  was 
his  own  thought — his  own  project.  "God,"  it  is  said,  "made 
man  upright,  but  they  have  found  out  the  knowledge  of 
evil  inventions."  Jonah  was  reckless.  Having  found  the 
ship,  "he  paid  the  fare  thereof."  He  said  to  himself — 
"Let  alone !     I  will  do  it,  whatever  the  cost."     How  many 


126  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

a  man  has  thus  said — "I  will  have  it,  or  her — I  will  have 
my  own  way,  if  it  damns  me !" 

Jonah  deceived  the  sailors  when  he  paid  the  fare.  His 
whole  life  from  that  moment  was  a  lie;  his  position,  toward 
God  and  man,  a  false  one  with  only  one  end  to  it.  When 
Jonah  thought  of  that  he  ignored  it.  He  sank  down  in  a 
stupor.  He  went  down  into  the  ship's  hold  and  courted  the 
oblivion  of  sleep.  Vivid  type  he  is  of  the  indifferent  un- 
awaked  sinner — "dead  in  trespasses  and  sins." 

But  again :  The  ship's  company  is  saved  by  one  flung 
overboard  and  sacrificed  for  many.  Here  is  a  change  and 
Jonah  takes  a  new  relation,  that  of  a  substitute.  He  becomes 
the  type  of  our  Saviour,  both  in  death  and  resurrection. 

The  mariners  cry  to  their  gods ;  they  apply  to  their  home- 
made religion.  They  cast  forth  their  cargo  into  the  sea. 
This  is  like  the  sinner  in  a  tempest  of  conviction  reforming 
himself  and  throwing  sin  overboard.  Not  only  so  but  the 
sailors  make  strenuous  efforts.  They  do  their  best  to  save 
themselves.  They  "row  hard"  to  bring  their  storm  tossed 
ship  to  land.    They  toil  to  the  uttermost  in  their  rowing. 

No  use !  They  cannot  save  themselves  nor  help  to  save 
themselves.  Jonah  must  die  for  them.  Another  must  save 
them.  The  grand  exchange  and  substitution  is  accom- 
plished. Jonah  sinks  into  the  belly  of  hell  and  the  whole 
ship's  company  are  delivered. 

Then,  once  more :  Jonah,  in  the  belly  of  hell,  sees  him- 
self lost  and  puts  himself  at  the  disposal  of  God.  He  learns 
the  Pauline  theology  in  a  strange  college.  Down  in  the 
whale's  belly  he  became  convinced  that  it  would  not  be  his 
choice  but  God's  choice  that  would  save  him.  If  God  saw 
fit  to  leave  him,  he  was  gone. 

Jonah  here  changes  again ;  takes  the  lost  sinner's  place 
and  lays  himself  at  the  foot  of  God's  sovereignty.  Salvation 
is  not  of  Jonah.  He  sees  this,  and  when  he  thoroughly  sees 
it,  God  says  to  the  whale,  "Now  vomit  him  up."  Jonah  is 
lost  as  he  is  in  the  belly  of  hell.    Salvation  is  of  the  Lord. 

Then  again:  Salvation  is  by  irresistible  influence.  God 
moves  on  the  whale  to  cast  Jonah  up.     Some  say,  "It  was 


THE   DOCTRINES    OF   GRACE.  127 

not  a  whale."  They  say  there  are  no  whales  in  the  Mede- 
terranean.  This  is  untrue.  We  saw,  my  wife  and  T,  the 
skeleton  of  a  whale,  more  than  fifty  feet  long,  at  Beirut. 
The  missionaries  told  us  the  waves  had  washed  it  up  on  the 
sands. 

If  God  could  make  so  wonderful  a  thing  as  a  Jonah,  He 
could  make  so  wonderful  a  tiling  as  a  fish  big  enough  to 
swallow  him — the  Scriptures  no  where  say  it  was  a  whale — 
and  if  He  could  do  that,  He  could  move  that  fish,  afterward, 
to  throw  Jonah  up. 

God  not  only  moved  on  the  fish,  but  He  moved  on  the 
Ninevites.  All  the  preaching  in  the  world  in  such  a  case 
would  have  amounted  to  nothing.  A  man  traveling  along 
the  streets  of  New  York  and  crying  out :  "This  city  is  doom- 
ed !"  would  draw  no  attention,  save  as  eccentric,  save  as  a 
fanatic.  God  moved  Nineveh  and  moved  on  separate  indi- 
viduals from  the  King  down.  He  turned  them  as  the  rivers 
of  water  are  turned;  He  made  them  willing  in  the  day  of 
His  power. 

Once  more,  God  taught  in  Jonah  the  eternal  preservation 
of  His  own.  He  preserved  Jonah  even  though  a  whale  swal- 
lowed him.  He  will  preserve  the  soul  that  trusts  in  Him, 
even  though  the  perils  of  hell  are  around  him — though  the 
jaws  of  the  dragon  have  seemed  to  swallow  him  up.  He  will 
preserve  the  Church  within  the  ribs  of  His  eternal  covenant 
as  He  did  Jonah  within  the  ribs  of  the  great  fish  and  as  He 
did  Noah  within  the  timbers  of  the  Ark.  He  will  preserve 
the  Hebrew  race.  Even  though  they  seem  to  go  down  amid 
the  waves  of  turbulent  tumultuating  nations  and  to  be  lost 
beneath  the  sea  of  history,  yet — in  their  twelve  tribes,  intact 
— they  shall  emerge.  They  shall  be  cast  up  and  out  again 
upon  the  shores  of  their  own  land,  and  Palestine  re-peopled 
shall  fulfil  the  wonderful  predictions,  not  only  hinted  at  in 
Jonah,  but  affirmed,  with  one  consent,  by  all  God's  prophets. 

Not  only  is  Jonah  thus  indissolubly  interwoven  with  the 
Gospels  in  its  type  of  Christ,  and  with  the  Epistles  of  the 
New  Testament  in  its  doctrines ;  but  it  is  also  indissolubly 
interwoven  with  the  x\cts  of  the  Apostles — as  being  the  great 
Missionary  Book  of  the  Old  Testament,  spreading  its 
Evangel,  as  it  does,  from  Tarshish  in  Spain  to  the  banks  of 


128  THE   DOCTRINES    OF   GRACE. 

Indus ;  and  with  theApocalypse  as  pointing  to  the  conver- 
sion of  both  Jew  and  Gentile  in  a  world  reclaimed  to  God 
— portraved  in  all  the  glowing  scenes  of  the  millennium  to 
come.    But 

III.  The  practical  and  experimental  in  the  Christian  life 
are  equally  conspicuous  in  this  extraordinary  book. 

"It  displeased  Jonah  exceedingly" — well  now  look  at  it. 

This  Mission,  first,  was  an  opposition  to  Jonah's  national 
prejudices.  Nothing  is  so  strong  as  prejudice — or  perhaps 
as  race  or  religious  prejudice.  Here  both  were  combined. 
Israel  was  to  be  rejected.  She  was  to  be  carried  into  cap- 
tivity by  this  very  Nineveh ;  a  thought  insupportable  to  a 
patriotic  and  God  fearing  Israelite — and  yet  to  this  idolatrous 
Nineveh — on  a  mission  of  blessing — was  Jonah  sent. 

Then  again :  God  seemed  to  falsify  Jonah's  message. 
He  did  not  falsify  it — for  the  Nineveh  Jonah  went  to  was 
destroyed — i.  e.,  it  was  made  another  and  a  converted  and 
God-fearing  city.  It  was  not  a  God-fearing  city  that  God 
would  or  could  destroy. 

Moreover,  the  threat  was  conditional  and  Jonah  knew  it 
to  be  conditional.  He  knew  he  was  not  sent  to  Nineveh  to 
ruin  Nineveh  but  to  save  her.  "This  was  my  saying,"  he 
complains — "when  I  was  in  my  own  country — I  knew  how  it 
would  turn  out." 

Poor  Jonah  was  only  a  man.  He  was  jealous  with  a 
needless  jealousy  for  the  honor  of  God.  His  country  was  in 
danger  from  this  Assyrian  power  which  he  had  hoped,  in 
spite  of  hope,  was  now  to  be  utterly  humbled.  Above  all, 
his  own  reputation  as  a  prophet  was  touched — and  we  none 
of  us  know  how  far  the  personal  enters  into  our  judgments, 
to  warp  us.  Jonah  had  hoped  while  Justice  drew  the  glitter- 
ing sword ;  but  when  mercy  sheathed  it,  and  perils  thronged 
the  vision  of  his  future,  Jonah  broke  down.  He  became — for 
the  time — a  pessimist.  The  age  was  out  of  joint.  The 
world  rushes  to  chaos.  "Everything  goes  against  me,"  cries 
Jonah.  "Everybody  is  against  me ;  God  himself  exposes  me 
to  disgrace  and  disregards  my  feelings."  That  is  Jonah 
under  the  gourd. 

Very  sad  is  all  this  upon  the  prophet's  part,  but  not  so 
very  exceptional.    Have  you  and  I  my  brethren  never  been 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  129 

displeased  and  disconcerted  by  the  course  things  were  tak- 
ing? Have  we  never  spoken  a  peevish  murmuring  word — 
have  we  never  offered  an  unbelieving  prayer.  Have  we 
never  seemed  to  arrive  at  the  bitter  end  of  it  when  we  could 
not  any  longer  understand  God?  Or  have  we  never  been 
tempted  to  think  our  way  would  have  been  better.  Have 
we  never  tried  to  mend  God's  ways,  to  rectify  His  provi- 
dence, to  turn  the  course  of  things  this  way  or  that — after 
it  was  manifest  that  the  Great  Supreme  Ruler  had  chosen 
that  way  and  not  this?    If  so,  then  we  have  been  Jonah. 

Above  all — and  here  I  hope  I  come  nearer,  more  com- 
fortingly nearer  to  your  experience — have  you,  amid  the 
reverses  and  thwartings  of  life,  amid  the  sighings  and  the 
frettings  of  a  wounded  spirit — not  wilfully  rebellious  nor 
consciously  revolting  against  God — have  you,  with  all  His 
children  under  grievous  and  not  joyous  discipline,  betaken 
yourself  to  the  universal  curative  of  prayer?  Have  you 
talked  with  Him  about  it  as  Jonah  did  until  the  heat  and 
vehemence  of  your  passion  died  away  and  in  sweet  broken- 
hearted contrition  you  were  willing  to  justify  God  and 
even  to  sit  down  and  write  out  the  story  of  your  sin,  without 
one  word  of  apology  for  yourself  and  so  leave  God  right, 
and  yourself  forever  in  the  wrong — but  filled  with  an  un- 
utterable peace  that  passes  understanding?  Then,  again, 
you  have  been  Jonah.  Then  you  have  found  submission  to 
God  and  trust  in  God  the  dearest  of  all  earthly  portions  and 
can  say — 

"He  chose  this  path  for  me ; 
No  feeble  chance,  nor  hard,  relentless  fate, 
But  love,  His  love,  hath  placed  the  footsteps  here ; 
He  knew  the  way  was  rough  and  desolate, 
Knew  how  my  heart  would  often  sink  with  fear, 
Yet  tenderly  He  whispered,  'Child,  I  see 

This  path  is  best  for  thee.'  " 

"He  chose  this  path  for  me ; 
Though  well  He  knew  sharp  thorns  would  tear  my  feet, 
Knew  how  the  troubles  would  obstruct  the  way, 
Knew  all  the  hidden  dangers  I  would  meet, 


130  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Knew  how  my  faith  would  falter  day  by  day, 
And  still  the  whisper  echoed,  'Yes,  I  see 
This  path  is  best  for  thee.'  " 

"He  chose  this  path  for  me; 
E'en  while  He  knew  the  fearful  midnight  gloom 
My  timid,  shrinking  soul  must  travel  through  ; 
How  towering  rocks  would  oft  before  me  loom, 
And  phantoms  grim  would  meet  the  frightened  view ; 
Still  comes  the  whisper,  'My  beloved,  I  see 

This  path  is  best  for  thee.'  " 

"He  chose  this  path  for  me ; 
What  need  I  more?   This  sweeter  truth  to  know? 
That  all  along  these  strange,  bewildering  ways, 
O'er  rocky  steeps,  and  where  dark  rivers  flow, 
His  loving  arms  shall  bear  me  all  my  days ; 
A  few  steps  more,  and  I  myself  shall  see 

This  path  was  best  for  me." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  131 

DIFFICULTIES  IN  THE  BIBLE, 

WORDS  FOR  THE  UNSETTLED  IN  SOUL. 


"Yet  ye  say,  The  way  of  the  Lord  is  not  equal.  Hear  now,  O 
house  of  Israel :  is  not  my  way  equal  ?  Are  not  your  ways  unequal." 
— Ezek.  xviii  :25. 


Two  principles  which  we  must  take  with  us  and  always 
employ  in  the  study  of  Scripture  are  these : 

1.  Direct  assertions  cannot  be  invalidated  by  indirections; 
the  Indicative  by  a  Subjunctive ;  the  positive  by  an  "if." 

2.  A  mystery  is  not  a  contradiction.  A  mystery  is  a  fact 
which  we  cannot  explain.  A  contradiction  is  no  fact ;  it  is 
a  statement  involving  one  or  more  falsehoods ;  it  is  a  prop- 
osition which  neutralizes  and  explodes  itself. 

The  sinner's  position  is  that  God's  ways  are  unequal.  This 
is  his  excuse,  or  one  of  his  chief  excuses,  for  disobeying 
God.  He  brings  forward  many  supposed  self-contradictions 
in  the  Bible. 

I  purpose  to  take  up  some  of  these  and  handle  them,  as 
specimens  of  others,  in  a  very  simple  and  straightforward 
way.  Not  that  I  can,  in  a  short  sermon  elaborate  a  complete 
justification  of  God ;  that  is  a  work  too  broad  for  any 
sermon  and  too  broad  for  man.  It  is  the  work  of  the 
Supreme  and  Christ-revealing  Spirit.  My  work  is  narrow 
and  special :  by  the  Spirit's  gracious  help,  to  start  the  sinner 
from  behind  his  barricades ;  to  let  in  daylight  and  make 
him  think. 

What,  then,  are  some  of  his  difficulties  if  not  alleged 
contradictions? 

I.  The  Bible  represents  God  as  omnipotent,  and  yet  as- 
serts there  are  some  things  which  God  cannot  do.  If  God 
is  omnipotent,  why  does  he  not  abolish  hell? 

Replv  1  st. — Omnipotence  does  not  mean  that  God  can  do 
everything,  but  everything  that  does  not  involve  a  self- 
contradiction — everything  that  is  an  object  of  power.    That 


132  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

a  thing  should  be  and  not  be  at  the  same  moment ;  that  a 
circle  at  the  same  time  should  be  a  square ;  that  a  creature 
should  be  infinite,  or  a  human  body  everywhere,  are  self- 
contradictions,  absurdities,  and  not  objects  of  power. 

Reply  2d. — Omnipotence  does  not  mean  that  God  can  do 
the  morally  impossible.  A  man  has  power  to  commit  suicide 
— that  is,  he  can  take  a  razor  and  draw  it  across  his  throat. 
Any  man  can  do  that ;  physically  he  has  the  power.  But 
a  good  man  cannot  commit  suicide.  So  a  holy  God  cannot 
deny  Himself — cannot  lie — cannot  make  another  God,  for 
these  things  would  be  to  array  Himself  against  Himself ;  to 
commit  suicide ;  to  destroy  His  own  perfection. 

Reply  3d. — Omnipotence  does  not  mean  that  God  can 
thwart  his  own  attributes  or  frustrate  His  own  purposes ; 
that  He  can  do  anything  contrary  to  His  own  Being,  char- 
acter or  glory.  The  omnipotence  of  God  is  not  what  some 
men  picture  it,  a  reckless  and  irresponsible  Almightiness  let 
loose  like  a  wild  beast  to  run  careering  through  the  universe. 
God's  omnipotence  is  a  locomotive  that  runs  on  straight 
lines.  It  is  infinite  power  guided  by  and  under  the  control 
of  infinite  wisdom,  infinite  justice,  infinite  truth. 

God,  though  omnipotent,  cannot  abolish  hell.  Why? 
Because  His  wisdom  sees  that  hell  must  exist.  His  justice 
demands  it,  and  His  word  is  pledged  for  it.  "The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die."  "The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into 
hell."  Physically,  God  can  do  anything  that  is  an  object  of 
power.  Morally,  God  can  do  nothing  inconsistent  with  His 
own  perfection.  That  is  the  Bible  representation  of  omnipo- 
tence all  the  way  through,  and  in  that  representation  there 
is  not  the  hint  or  shadow  of  a  contradiction. 

II.  The  Bible  represents  God  as  loving  the  world,  and  as 
saving  the  world,  and  as  willing  that  no  man  should  perish ; 
and  yet  the  same  Bible  teaches  that  many  are  lost,  that  a 
remnant  are  saved,  and  that  "the  election  hath  obtained  it 
while  the  rest  were  blinded." 

Replv. — There  is  a  difference  between  God's  love  of 
benevolence  and  God's  love  of  relationship  and  union.  I 
mav  have  a  true  love  for  my  neighbors,  but  I  have  but  one 
wife.  I  may  love  my  neighbor's  children,  but  I  have  a 
special  regard  for  my  own.    With  a  love  of  benevolence  God 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  133 

loves  the  whole  world.  Yes,  He  has  a  greater  love  for  this 
world  than  for  any  other,  and  for  this  race  than  for  any 
other.  My  brother,  my  sister,  whoever  you  are,  you  belong 
to  the  race  that  God  pre-eminently  loves ;  to  the  race  that 
Jesus  died  for,  and  to  the  race  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
gathering  home  to  His  bosom. 

But  let  us  look  at  the  texts  that  are  quoted  as  pertinent 
here  and  read  them  in  the  full  and  exact  breadth  of  their 
meaning. 

John  iii:i6:  "For  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave 
His  only  begotten  Son" — for  what  purpose?  To  save  in- 
dividuals— "That  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not 
perish." 

John  iii  :ij :  "For  God  sent  not  His  Son  into  the  world  to 
condemn  the  world,  but  that  the  world,  through  Him  might 
be  saved."  Does  that  text  teach  Universalism  ?  It  does 
not.  It  cannot  be  tortured  to  teach  it.  It  only  teaches  that 
it  was  not  God's  intention  to  perform  a  work  of  condemna- 
tion down  here,  but  a  work  of  salvation.  The  contrast  is 
between  these  two  things.  The  mission  was  not  to  condemn, 
but  to  save. 

2.  Peter  iii  :g :  "Not  willing  that  any  should  perish,  but 
that  all  should  come  to  repentance."  Here  the  willing  spoken 
of  is  not  active,  but  passive.  The  teaching  is  not  that 
God  has  willed,  actually  determined,  that  not  a  man  shall 
perish ;  but  the  teaching  is  that  God  has  no  desire  that  any 
man  should  perish.  If  he  perishes  he  perishes  of  his  own 
self-motion.  He  gets  no  push  downward  from  God.  "As  I 
live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death 
of  him  that  dieth,  but  that  the  wicked  turn  from  his  way 
and  live ;  turn  ye,  turn  ye  from  your  evil  ways,  for  why  will 
ye  die,  O  house  of  Israel." 

God  in  Ezekiel  declares  that  He  takes  no  pleasure  in  the 
death  of  any  man ;  that  he  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it ;  that  if  men  go  to  work  and  destroy  themselves  they 
alone  must  bear  the  blame  and  the  responsibility.  God  wills 
against  no  man.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  a  goodwill  toward 
all.  But  this  is  not  necessarily  an  effective  will.  I  may 
think  a  great  deal  of  a  man  and  yet  not  choose  him  for 
my  partner  or  make  him  my  legatee.  God  loves  the  world, 
but  He  has  chosen  His  people  out  of  the  world.     God  is 


134  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  Saviour  of  all  men,  in  a  temporal  way,  in  a  conditional 
way,  but  especially  is  He  "the  Saviour  of  them  that  be- 
lieve,"— i  Tim.  iv:io.  God  wills  the  salvation  of  our  race. 
He  has  given  a  Gospel  for  all  men.  He  would  have  us 
preach  it  to  all  men;  but  this  the  will  of  Him  that  sent 
Me,  the  will  within  the  will,  "that  every  one  that  seeth 
the  Son,  and  believeth  on  Him,  may  have  everlasting-  life." 
Now  there  is  not  the  hint  nor  shadow  of  a  contradiction  in 
these  two  representations.  The  waters  of  the  Nile  belong 
in  a  sense  to  the  whole  Land  of  Egypt,  but  they  are  ef- 
fectively, constantly  and  productively  applied  to  the  Delta. 
So  with  the  love  of  God.  It  flows  over  all  men ;  it  flows 
effectively,  eternally,  productively  into  the  hearts  of  His 
people. 

III.  The  Bible  represents  God  as  holy,  and  yet  guilty  of 
the  grossest  injustice  in  punishing  us  for  Adam's  sin. 

Reply. — God  does  not  do  this.  God  punishes  no  man 
for  Adam's  sin,  but  for  his  own  sin.  In  the  Bible  there  is 
no  such  representation  as  this :  that  God  sits  upon  the 
throne  of  judgment  and  takes  men  to  task  for  Adam's  sin. 
You  cannot  find  such  a  representation  between  the  two  lids 
of  the  Bible.  On  the  contrary,  if  any  sinner  can  show  that 
he  is  righteous,  that  he  himself  has  never  sinned,  he  will 
never  hear  anything  about  Adam.  "Yet  ye  say,  why?  doth 
not  the  son  bear  the  iniquity  of  the  father?  When  the  son 
hath  done  that  which  is  lawful  and  right,  and  hath  kept  all 
my  statutes,  and  hath  done  them,  he  shall  surely  live." — 
Ezek.  xviii:i9.  If  you  can  square  yourself  to  that  text,  my 
brother;  if  you  can  show  that  you  have  kept  all  God's 
statutes ;  if  you  can  show  that  you  have  never  had  any 
complicity  with  Adam  in  the  affair  of  sin,  you  have  nothing 
to  fear  about  Adam.  Just  you  get  up  and  show  your  im- 
maculate purity  to  God  and  to  the  universe,  and  it  will  be 
enough. 

But  it  was  unjust  to  make  Adam  our  federal  head. 

Reply  ist. — The  federal  or  representative  principle  runs 
through  the  universe.  One  generation  commits  another  in 
spite  of  itself.    Our  fathers  erected  the  Republic  and  made 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  135 

us  Americans.  We  cannot  help  ourselves.  They  committed 
us  to  a  republic.  We  are  born  republicans  by  their  act,  and 
not  monarchists. 

Reply  2d.  The  race  must  have  either  stood  in  a  full  grown 
man,  with  a  full-orbed  intellect,  or  stood  as  babies,  each 
entering  his  probation  in  the  twilight  of  self-consciousness, 
each  deciding  his  destiny  before  his  eyes  were  half -opened 
to  what  it  all  meant.  How  much  better  would  that  have 
been?  How  much  more  just?  But  could  it  not  have  been 
some  other  way?  There  was  no  other  way.  It  was  either 
the  baby  or  it  was  the  perfect,  well-equipped,  all-calculating 
man— the  man  who  saw  and  comprehended  everything. 
That  man  was  Adam.  He  was  not  deceived.  The  Scripture 
says  he  was  not.  He  knew  just  what  he  was  about.  He  did 
what  he  did  deliberately.  Deliberately  he  wrecked  himself 
and  us.  Deliberately  he  murdered  his  eternal  generations. 
Deliberately  he  jumped  the  precipice.  Like  many  another 
who  has  loved  "not  wisely  but  too  well,"  he  would  not  lose 
his  Eve.  He  chose  her  rather  than  God.  He  determined 
he  would  have  her  if  he  went  to  hell  with  her. 

Reply  3d.  If  we  had  not  fallen  by  one  man,  we  could  not 
have  been  saved  by  One  Man.  If  we  are  lost  by  consent- 
ing to  Adam,  we  shall  be  saved  by  consenting  to  Christ. 
Where  is  the  injustice  or  the  unholiness  in  all  this?  Where 
is  the  hint  or  shadow  of  a  contradiction. 

IV.  The  Bible  represents  God  as  love,  and  yet  as  the 
author  of  the  most  cruel  actions.  He  commanded  the  Jews 
to  exterminate  the  Canaanites,  and  He  was  so  vindictive  as 
to  torture  and  to  kill  His  own  Son. 

Reply  1  st. — God  was  not  cruel  in  the  extermination  of 
the  Canaanites  unless  all  sentence  against  crime  is  cruel. 
Turn  back  and  read.  You  will  find  that  those  Canaanites 
were  the  Borgias  and  the  Cencis  of  their  time.  Their  sins 
were  too  horrible  for  description.  They  were  sins  that  cause 
the  tongue  to  cleave  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth.  They  were 
sins  which  were  eating  society  through  and  through  like  a 
cancer  which  must  be  cut  out.  God  had  a  right  to  cut  out 
that  cancer.  God  had  the  same  right  to  destroy  the  Canaan- 
ites that  he  had  to  destroy  the  Antediluvians  or  Sodom. 
Again,  God  had  a  perfect  right  to  select  what  executioners 


136  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

He  pleased.  He  selected  the  Jews.  He  guarded  against  any 
personal  feeling  on  their  part  by  making  their  function 
strictly  official.  He  raised  the  whole  transaction  to  the 
platform,  and  the  dignity,  and  the  solemnity  of  law.  And 
how  else  could  God  have  met  this  case  more  wisely  or  more 
holily,  or  how  could  He  have  stamped  more  deeply  or  more 
widely  on  the  Jews  and  on  the  world  at  large  the  salutary 
sense  of  His  justice? 

Reply  2d. — The  answer  in  reference  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  so  easy  and  obvious  that  nothing  but  a  wilfully  and 
awfully  perverse  mind  could  have  missed  it. 

It  was  not  a  vindictive  and  blood-thirsty  spirit  in  God 
which  led  Him  to  seek  the  death  of  His  Son  as  a  substitute. 
God's  justice  must  punish  sin.  That  is  an  eternal  must  in 
God.  To  find  fault  with  it  is  to  find  fault — shall  I  say  with 
the  nature  of  things?  I  must  go  higher,  and  say  with  the 
nature  of  God.  What  would  a  God  be  without  justice,  and 
what  would  a  justice  be  that  did  not  punish  sin. 

Beside  this  the  universe  demanded  the  punishment  of  sin. 
When  I  was  a  boy  the  entire  population  of  Western  New 
York  was  shocked  by  the  murder  of  the  Van  Nest  family. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  impression.  In  the  dark  night,  a 
negro  knocked  at  the  door  of  a  farmer's  house  upon  the 
margin  of  Owasco  Lake.  The  wife  and  mother  who  came 
to  the  door  was  felled  by  a  blow  of  a  bludgeon.  The  mur- 
derer went  through  the  house  and  put  each  member  of  the 
family  to  death.  He  cut  their  throats  or  stunned  them,  and 
then  killed  them.  When  the  outrage  was  known  the  whole 
community  was  up  in  arms.  It  was  all  that  the  police  could 
do  to  keep  men  from  lynching  that  negro.  Not  only  was  the 
law  against  him,  but  the  public  sentiment,  with  its  ten  thou- 
sand tongues,  which  echoed  and  confirmed  it.  So  in  the  case 
of  the  Atonement.  The  universe,  as  well  as  God,  demands 
satisfaction.  Let  it  be  seen  that  God  does  not  intend  to 
punish  sin — that  He  is  going  to  let  the  brigands  and 
assassins  of  his  moral  government  run  loose — and,  up  and 
out  from  every  holy  conscience  there  will  come  a  cry  for  blood 
— a  cry  which  gathering  volume  and  momentum  as  it  rolls, 
will  fill  creation  with  anarchic  and  incessant  thunders. 

God  knew  that  it  was  unsafe,  as  well  as  impossible,  to  for- 
give sin  without  a  satisfaction.    For  this  reason  it  was  that 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  137 

"He  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Him  up  for  us 
all,"  for  us  who  believe.  Where  in  all  this  is  there  any  ele- 
ment of  cruelty.  Where  is  there  any  invalidation  of  love? 
Why,  "herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He 
loved  us  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  a  propitiation  for  our  sins." 
Not  the  hint  or  the  shadow  of  a  contradiction  is  there 
here. 

V.  The  Bible  says  that  Christ  died  for  all  men,  and  yet 
again  it  says  that  He  died  for  only  a  part. 

Reply  1. — The  Bible  represents  that  Christ  died  for  this 
world  and  no  other — for  mankind  as  a  race,  and  not  angels. 

Reply  2d. — The  Bible  represents  that  Christ  died  for  all 
men  to  secure  for  them  temporal  blessings.  Without  the 
Cross  as  a  breakwater,  death  would  at  once  surge  over  and 
swamp  all  our  millions. 

Reply  3d. — The  Bible  represents  that  Christ  purchases  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  His  ordinary  influences  for  all  men,  and  the 
Gospel  for  masses  and  nations. 

Reply  4th. — The  Bible  represents  that  Christ  died  for  all 
men  provided  they  unll  accept.  In  this  sense  no  man  per- 
ishes for  lack  of  an  atonement.  If  he  perishes  he  perishes 
for  lack  of  trusting,  not  for  lack  of  Christ. 

Now  right  along  inside  of  these  representations  the  Bible 
constantly  affirms  that  Christ  died  savingly  and  efficiently 
for  His  people,  His  Church,  His  sheep ;  and  that  He  is  the 
Saviour  of  His  body,  and  that  His  atonement  and  His  in- 
tercession are  not  for  the  world,  but  as  He  Himself  says, 
"I  pray  not  for  the  world  but  for  them  which  thou  hast 
given  me,  for  they  are  thine." 

But  in  John  i  -.29  He  is  called  "the  Lamb  of  God  that  tak- 
eth  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  Yes,  and  so  He  is — the  Sin- 
Taker  for  the  world,  if  they  will  have  Him. 

In  John  xii  132  it  is  said:  "And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will 
draw  all  men  to  me.  Reply. — The  word  "men"  is  not  in  the 
original ;  it  is  an  interpolation.  The  true  translation  is,  "And 
I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  mine  to  me." 

I.  Tim.  ii  :6,  "Who  gave  Himself  a  ransom  for  all  to  be 
testified  in  due  time."  Precisely — who  the  "all"  are  will  be 
testified  in  due  time,  by  the  call  of  the  Spirit,  when  the  books 
shall  be  opened. 


138  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Heb.  ii  :g,  "He  tasted  death  for  every  man."  Reply. — The 
word  "man"  is  not  in  the  Greek;  it  is  an  interpolation.  The 
true  translation  must  be  gathered  from  the  context.  The 
Apostle  is  speaking  of  the  Eternal  Son  saving  the  sons.  He 
goes  on,  therefore,  to  say:  "He  tasted  death  for  every  one 
of  them;  for  it  became  Him,  for  whom  are  all  things,  and 
by  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many  sons  to  glory  to 
make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect." 

The  true  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  that  Christ  is 
offered  to  all  men ;  that  he  dies  in  the  midst  of  men  as  a 
substitute  ;  that  he  dies  for  His  people  ;  and  that  all  who  hear 
His  Gospel  and  trust  in  Him  are  His  people,  and  are  from 
that  instant  eternally  saved.  Now  what  hint  or  shadow,  or 
faintest  trace  of  contradiction  is  there  here? 

VI.  The  Bible  says  that  the  believer  is  everlastingly 
saved,  and  yet  that  he  can  fall  from  grace. 

Reply. — The  Bible  does  not  say  that  he  can  fall  out  of 
grace,  if  it  did  God  would  deny  himself,  there  would  be  a 
flat  contradiction  and  we  should  be  puzzled  indeed  what  to 
reply.  What  the  Bible  does  say  is  that  the  Galatians  under 
their  Judaizing  teachers  had  abandoned  the  ground  of  free 
justification  on  which  they  had  stood.  In  taking  up  the  old 
principle  of  circumcision  they  had  dropped  upon  a  lower 
platform  and  fallen  back  from  the  principle  of  grace.  That 
is  what  the  Bible  says.  That  is  exactly  what  it  says.  Wrest, 
and  twist,  and  torture  the  Greek  as  you  please,  you  can  make 
nothing  else  of  it. 

Reply  2. — The  Bible  statements  about  everlasting  life  are 
positive,  and  positive  assertions  cannot  be  shaken  by  any 
mere  hypotheses.  In  John  x:26,  our  Saviour  directly  and 
explicitly  asserts  this  doctrine.  "Ye  believe  not,"  He  says, 
"because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep."  That  is  going  to  the  root 
of  the  matter.  But  who  are  the  sheep?  "My  sheep  hear 
my  voice,  and  I  know  them  and  they  follow  Me.  And  I  give 
unto  them  eternal  life  and  they  shall  never  perish  (literally 
they  shall  never  be  able  to  destroy  themselves ;  to  vitiate  the 
grace  that  is  in  them),  neither  shall  any  man  pluck  them  out 
of  my  hand ;  and  even  if  this  could  be,"  He  goes  on  to  say, 
"If  any  could  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand,  there  is  a  hand  out- 
side of  mine;  My    Father  which  gave  them  Me  is  greater 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  139 

than  all :  and  no  man  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  My 
Father's  hand,  /  and  My  Father,  as  to  this  eternal  covenant, 
arc  one" 

But  does  not  the  Apostle  say  in  Heb.  vi  -.4,  "It  is  impos- 
sible for  those  who  were  once  enlightened  and  have  tasted 
of  the  heavenly  gift  and  were  made  partakers  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  have  tasted  the  good  word  of  God,  and  the  powers 
of  the  world  to  come ;  if  they  shall  fall  away,  to  renew  them 
again  to  repentance?" 

Reply  1st. — This  is  a  mere  hypothesis,  "If  they  shall  fall 
away,"  "if," — the  graceless  will  fall  away,  but  God  provides 
for  the  "if"  in  the  case  of  His  true  people  as  He  says  in  Ps. 
xxxvii:3i,  "None  of  their  steps  shall  slide." 

Reply  2d. — The  text  taken  absolutely  asserts  the  im- 
possibility of  any  renewal  at  all.  So  that  if  it  means  to  say 
a  man  can  fall  from  actual  grace,  it  means  to  say  he  cannot 
be  renewed  again.  According  to  such  an  interpretation  there 
is  no  hope  for  any  backslider.  Once  fallen,  he  is  doomed ; 
it  is  hopeless  to  preach  to  him. 

Reply  3dj — The  text  says  nothing  about  actual  grace  but 
only  about  certain  hopeful  but  delusive  signs  of  it.  A  man 
may  be  "enlightened"  as  to  the  doctrine;  he  may  "taste  of 
the  hcaz'cnly  gift" — that  is,  have  some  speculative  superficial 
knowledge  of,  and  fancied  love  for  Christ — a  thing  very 
different  from  "eating  His  flesh  and  drinking  His  blood  by 
a  true  and  internal  reception  of  Him ;  again  he  may  be  a 
"partaker  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  in  His  common,  external  and 
even  powerful  influences — as  many  a  man  has  been  greatly 
moved  and  even  brought  to  a  profession  of  faith  in  a  time 
of  revival ;  again  he  may  go  further  and  "taste  the  good 
rvord  of  God"  and  "anon  with  joy  receive  it,  all  the  while, 
having  no  life  in  himself ;  he  may  even  proceed  so  far  as 
to  show  great  gifts  and  "work  miracles"  like  Judas  by  the 
"poivers  of  the  world  to  come."  All  this  may  be  true  of 
him  and  yet  he  may  afterward  wilfully  and  knowingly  and 
deliberately  deny  and  reject  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  com- 
mit the  unpardonable  sin  from  which  there  is  no  renewal. 
It  is  no  common  backsliding,  no  fall  like  that  of  Peter  which 
is  here  intended,  but  it  is  such  an  apostacy  as  that  of  the 
man  who  once  knowing  and  professing  the  truth,  deliber- 


HO  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

ately  and  in  the  face  of  full  light  denies  rejects  and  op- 
poses it,  trampling-  the  Blood  of  Christ  beneath  his  feet — 
"crucifying  to  himself  the  Son  of  God  afresh  and  putting 
Him  to  an  open  shame."  The  persons  spoken  of,  then,  are 
not,  were  not,  and  never  will  be  in  grace,  for  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  a  man  may  share  all  the  external  things 
spoken  of  and  yet  be  a  stranger  to  the  reality  of  religion. 

Reply  4th. — The  apostle  explains  himself  when  he  adds 
that,  though  thus  solemnly  warning  them,  he  is  "persuaded 
better  things  of  them  and  things  which,  ixopeva.  have  in 
them  or  involve  salvation,"  as  the  things  before  men- 
tioned do  not.  Again,  he  says  that  those  of  whom  he 
has  been  speaking  are  fruitless  persons,  earth  which  bears 
thorns  and  briars  and  so  is  rejected,  and  is  nigh  unto  curs- 
ing whose  end  is  to  be  burned."  In  contrast  with  this,  those 
to  whom  he  writes  are  commended  for  their  work  and  labor 
of  love  which  God  is  not  unrighteous  to  forget. 

Reply  5th. — The  doctrine  (see  verses  16  to  20),  is 
that  men  fall  not  from  grace  but  from  the  lack 
of  it.  That  true  grace  can  never  fail  because 
of  two  immutable  things, — 1st,  the  Promise  of  God  to 
keep  His  people,  and  2d,  His  Oath  in  which  it  is  impossible 
for  God  to  lie,  or  prove  false  to  those  who  have  fled  to  and 
found  refuge  in  His  word  of  His  promise  on  which  He  has 
caused  us  to  hope. 

But  does  not  St.  Paul  say  in  I  Cor.  iv  127,  "Lest  that  by 
any  means,  when  I  have  preached  to  others  I  myself  should 
be  a  castaway?" 

Reply  1st. — The  word  adokimos,  translated  "castaway," 
means  "disapproved  of;  cast  aside."  It  refers  to  the  Apos- 
tle's official  position.  If  unfaithful  he  would  be  set  aside. 
The  Lord  would  not  use  him  for  conversions  any  more. 

Reply  2d. — The  Apostle  says,  "Lest  having  preached  to 
others,  I  myself,"  &c.  Many  preach  to  others  who  are  lost. 
The  Apostle  might  perhaps  compare  his  case  with  theirs. 
To  imagine  this  is  to  distort  and  falsify  the  language,  but 
even  then  what  St.  Paul  never  said  and  could  not  say  was 
this,  "Lest  being  born  again  I  should  be  lost." 

Objection. — If  this  be  so,  why  does  the  Saviour  say  in 
John  ¥111:31,  "If  ye  continue  in  my  word,  then  are  ye  my 


THE   DOCTRINES    OF   GRACE.  141 

disciples,  indeed,  and  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free?"  Again,  "He  that  endureth  to  the 
end  shall  be  saved." 

Reply. — As  to  the  continuing.  The  context  shows  that 
these  people  were  not  His  disciples  at  all.  They  did  not 
"know  the  truth."  They  had  not  been  made  free.  We  are 
talking-  about  true  Christians  falling  from  grace.  The  text 
therefore,  is  irrelevant. 

As  to  the  enduring.  God  saves  men  through  the  will,  and 
therefore  He  exhorts  them.  First  He  works  in  them  to  will, 
and  after  that  they  are  able  to  will,  and  must  will,  and  must 
be  stirred  up  to  it.  Hence  while  salvation  as  a  matter  of 
fact  is  assured,  we  are  all  through  the  Bible  addressed  in 
such  a  way  as  makes  us  feel  our  personal  responsibility. 
Thus  in  I.  John,  ii  127  we  have  the  positive  assertion  "Ye 
shall  abide  in  Him  ;"  but  this  is  followed  in  the  next  sen- 
tence by  the  exhortation,  "And  nozu  abide  in  Him !"  That 
is,  "God's  will  is  for  you ;  let  your  wills  work  with  God's. 
You  are  saved ;  therefore  walk  as  saved  men,  not  presump- 
tiously, but  cautiously,  and  in  the  fear  of  God." 

Objection. — "Destroy  not  him  with  thy  meat  for  whom 
Christ  died."  Reply. — I,  a  saved  soul,  may  act  in  such  a 
wav  as  tends  to  the  destruction  of  another  saved  soul.  God 
will  prevent  the  catastrophe.  He  is  pledged  to  prevent  it; 
but  I  am  guilty  all  the  same,  and  I  must  be  made  to  feel 
that.  Here  is  the  place  for  exhortation,  for  warning,  for 
reproof.  I  am  talked  to  as  if  I  did  the  whole  thing;  for 
while  God  saves  us  he  does  it  not  by  destroying  our  re- 
sponsibility, rather  by  emphasizine  and  enlarging  it.  Is 
there  a  hint  or  shadow  of  a  contradiction  in  all  this  ?  Mys- 
tery, at  every  point,  we  admit;  but  we  deny  contradiction. 

VII.  The  Bible  says  that  men  can  come  to  Christ,  and  it 
says  in  the  most  unequivocal  terms  (John  vi  144)  that  they 
cannot. 

Reply  1st. — The  Bible  nowhere  savs  that  the  natural  man, 
unaided  and  undrawn,  can  come  to  Christ.  In  all  the  Scrip- 
ture there  is  not  one  indicative  assertion  of  free-will.  All 
invitations  are  "if,"  "if,"  "if."  These  assert  no  ability.  To 
tell  a  man  that  he  mav  have  a  book  if  he  pays  $5  is  not  to 
give  him  $5.    It  is  only  saying  he  may  have  it  "if." 


142  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Reply  2d. — "If  thou  wilt"  shows  us  the  difference  between 
the  Lazv  and  the  Gospel.  The  Law  says,  "Do  it ;"  the  Gos- 
pel, "I  will  do  it  for  you."  The  Law  says,  "If;"  the  Gospel 
says,  "It  is  done."  The  Old  Testament  set  before  us  a  re- 
quirement and  a  reward,  with  a  chasm  between  them ;  the 
Gospel  fills  the  chasm — it  fills  it  with  Christ  and  His  cross. 

Reply  3d. — "If  thou  wilt"  teaches  us  what  we  ought  to  do 
in  order  to  convince  us  how  helpless  we  are.  The  object  of 
the  if  is  by  showing  what  we  ought  to  do  and  cannot  do, 
to  raise  the  question,  How  are  we  to  do  it?  This  brings  in 
Christ. 

Reply  4. — While  we  cannot  come  to  Christ  unaided,  we 
can  come  helped  by  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  if  we  simply  lean 
upon  His  help,  we  cannot  miss  the  mark.  The  point  of  the 
thing  is  something  like  this.  A  father  has  a  conceited  son. 
The  boy  has  an  immense  notion  of  his  own  ability.  "Very 
well,"  says  the  father,  "Roll  that  stone  up  the  hill  yonder." 
The  boy  puts  his  shoulder  to  the  stone  and  finds  he  cannot 
start  it.  "Roll  it  up  the  hill,"  says  the  father,  "and  I  will 
give  you  a  $10  bill."  The  boy  tugs,  and  tugs,  and  tugs 
until  he  exhausts  himself.  "Now,  when  you  are  ready  to 
confess  that  you  cannot  do  it  yourself ;  when  you  are  ready 
to  look  to  me  to  do  it  for  you,"  says  the  father,  "I  will  roll 
the  stone  up  the  hill  and  give  you  the  $10  beside."  The  boy 
with  his  shoulder  to  the  stone  is  the  Law.  The  boy  stand- 
ing aside,  looking  to  the  father  to  do  it  and  pocketing  the 
$10  bill,  is  the  Gospel,  "for  what  the  Law  could  not  do,  in 
that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God  sending  His  own 
Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin,  has  done  in 
the  Gospel." — Rom.  viii:3-  In  all  this  there  is  no  hint,  nor 
shadow,  nor  trace  of  contradiction. 

Now  what  is  the  outcome,  what  the  resultant,  of  our 
work  ? 

1.  A  line  of  light  runs  through  the  Bible  from  Genesis 
to  Revelation. 

2.  This  line  of  light  bears  down  upon  the  unconverted 
conscience. 

3.  This  line  of  light,  my  unconverted  brother,  fixes  your 
eternal  destiny.  You  are  in  that  spot  of  light  and  cannot 
get  out  of  it.    It  burns  upon  you  like  a  sun-glass. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  143 

That  turns  the  tables.  It  is  not  God  whose  ways  are  un- 
equal, but  the  sinner  whose  ways  are  unequal.  I  thought 
so  all  along.  I  thought  the  contradiction  was  not  in  the 
Book,  but  in  the  man.  Sinner !  you  must  break  down.  You 
must  see  yourself  utterly  vile.  You  must  renounce  all  your 
own  strength,  all  your  own  imaginations,  and,  prostrate  in 
the  dust,  you  must  look  up  and  out  to  Christ  for  everything. 
The  instant  you  do  that,  quick  as  the  lifting  of  an  eyelash, 
you  are  saved.  My  brother,  are  you  willing  now  to  look  to 
Jesus?  Does  God  make  you  willing?  Oh,  then,  dear 
brother,  you  are  saved ;  you  are  in  grace ;  give  God  the 
glory ! 

Almighty  God,  make  Thine  eternal  truth  Thy 
Spirit's  demonstration  and  resistless  power,  for  Jesus' 
sake,  who  sealed  it  with  hls  blood. 


144  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


THE  BONDAGE  OF  THE  WILL. 

Rom.  ix:i6. 

"So  then  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  runneth, 
but  of  God  that  sheweth  mercy." 

There  are  but  two  religions  upon  earth.  One,  that  which 
centers  in  the  dogma  of  Free-Will ;  the  other  that  which 
springs  from  the  Divine  Election.  O'ne  which  says,  "Sal- 
vation is  of  self-movement;"  the  other,  "Salvation  is  of 
the  Lord!" 

These  two  religions  are  two  different  systems.  One 
metaphysical,  which  goes  to  philosophy  for  its  reasons  and 
argues  from  consciousness  and  from  the  nature  of  things — 
this  system,  brought  within  the  circle  and  the  influence  of 
Christianity,  does  not  refuse  the  Scripture,  but  evades  those 
parts  of  Scripture  which  it  cannot  seem  to  subordinate,  and 
of  which  it  cannot  make  use.  The  other  system  stands 
on  Scripture  only,  and  argues  from  the  truth  of  revelation — 
from  the  scope  and  details  of  the  Book — from  facts  which 
have  been  witnessed  by  a  competent  authority,  the  Holy 
Ghost.  This  system,  when  brought  within  the  circle  and 
the  influence  of  human  argument,  does  not  necessarily  re- 
fuse reason,  but  subordinates  reason,  and  regards  the  "If?" 
of  reason,  where  God  speaks,  as  blasphemy. 

These  two  systems  in  the  Church  have  been  called  by 
different  names — Augustinianism  and  Pelagianism ;  Calvin- 
ism and  Arminianism ;  the  Old  and  New  School.  With 
every  spiritual  crisis,  side  by  side,  these  rival  systems 
emerge — a  bridgeless  gulf  between  them,  however  names 
may  change. 

The  one  system,  were  it  unopposed,  would  take  its  point 
of  departure  from  God,  and  from  him  would  argue  down 
the  lines  of  sovereignty,  of  justice  and  grace.  But,  con- 
fronted by  the  other  system,  whose  starting-point  is  man 
and  Nature,  and  the  so-called  shifting  "consciousness,"  the 
battle-ground  becomes  that  of  the  human  will  and  of  its 
freedom — Whether  the  will,  in  man.  is  free  in  such  a  sense 
as  makes  him  practically  independent,  not  of  God  alone, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  145 

but  of  himself ;  of  his  own  nature,  character  and  personality 
behind  it ;  whether  the  Will,  unfettered,  is  a  power  of  self- 
betrayal,  self-antagonism,  self-reverse;  something  which 
flies,  or  may  fly,  in  the  man's  own  face,  in  spite  of  him :  or, 
Whether  the  Will,  in  man,  is  but  a  faculty  among  the  facul- 
ties, linked  to  the  other  faculties,  and  controlled  in  move- 
ment and  in  bent  by  the  nature  and  bent  of  the  man  ? 

What  is  the  Will  in  man?  The  soul,  itself  a  trinity, 
has  three  great  primal  powers — the  Intellect,  or  power  of 
seeing;  the  Affections,  or  power  of  feeling;  and  the  Will, 
or  power  of  volition. 

The  Will,  then,  is  the  faculty  or  power  of  willing.  Is 
it  an  independent,  self-determinating  power? — i.  e.,  does 
the  Will  stand  apart  from  the  other  great  faculties  or  powers 
of  the  soul,  a  man  within  a  man,  who  can  reverse  the  man 
and  fly  against  the  man  and  split  him  into  segments,  as  a 
glass  snake  breaks  in  pieces? 

Or,  is  the  Will  connected  with  the  other  faculties,  as  the 
tail  of  the  serpent  is  with  his  body,  and  that  again  with  his 
head,  so  that  where  the  head  goes,  the  whole  creature  goes, 
and,  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he?  First  thought, 
then  heart  (desire  or  aversion),  and  then  act.  Is  it  this 
way,  the  dog  wags  the  tail?  Or,  is  it  the  Will,  the  tail, 
wags  the  dog? 

Is  the  Will  the  first  and  chief  thing  in  the  man.  or  is  it 
the  last  thing — to  be  kept  subordinate,  and  in  its  place 
beneath  the  other  faculties? — and,  is  the  true  philosophy 
of  moral  action  and  its  process  that  of  Gen.  iii:6:  "And 
when  the  woman  saw  that  the  tree  was  good  for  food" 
[sense-perception,  intelligence],  "and  a  tree  to  be  desired" 
[affections],  "she  took  and  ate  thereof"  [the  will.] 

The  latter  we  affirm  because  of  the  statements  of  Scrip- 
ture. 

But,  before  coming  to  these,  that  we  may  cut  through 
all  vagueness  and  mystification,  straight  to  the  root  of  the 
matter,  and  reach  a  fair  and  honest  statement  of  the  ques- 
tion, let  us  premise  a  few  things  by  way  of  clearing  the 
ground. 

Man  is  a  free  agent ;  but  man  has  not  a  free  will.  Man 
is,  therefore,  responsible;  yet  he  is  impotent.     Upon  this 


146  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

seeming  paradox,  but  changeless  fact,  is  built  the  scheme 
of  grace. 

The  man  is  free,  but  his  will  is  not  free.  Liberty  or  free- 
dom from  coercion  is  one  thing ;  ability  or  power  from  within 
is  another.  All  the  Reformed  Confessions  unite  on  this  point. 
To  make  it,  Luther,  in  his  "De  Servo  Arbitrio"  contends; 
to  make  it,  Augustine,  in  his  "De  Gratia  et  Arbitrio,"  con- 
tends ;  to  make  it,  St.  Paul,  in  all  his  Epistles,  contends ; 
to  make  it,  the  whole  Bible,  from  cover  to  cover,  is  directed. 
The  Bible  everywhere  holds  man  responsible,  yet  every- 
where it  strips  the  fallen  creature  of  all  spiritual  power ; 
writes  death  upon  him ;  shuts  him  up,  like  Nicodemus,  to 
new  birth — like  Lazarus,  to  resurrection;  asserts  that  it  is 
not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  runneth,  but  of 
God  that  showeth  mercy" ;  excludes  all  boasting  and  gives 
all  the  glory  to  God. 

This  being  so,  the  distinction  between  free  agency  and 
free  will  assumes  vital  importance,  and  calls  for  emphatic 
assertion.  Man  is  a  free  agent  because  unforced  from 
without ;  he  does  as  he  pleases,  always  as  he  pleases, 
only  as  he  pleases ;  he  is  therefore  responsible.  But 
man  has  not  a  free  will  because  he  is  bound  together 
within — because  his  judgment  moves  his  desires,  and 
his  desires  his  volitions,  just  as  steam  moves  the  piston 
and  the  piston  the  wheel.  While,  therefore,  man  does 
as  he  pleases,  he  pleases  and  can  please  only  one  way. 
He  does  as  he  pleases,  but  he  cannot  please  against  his  whole 
nature — against  the  unity,  tendency,  strain  of  his  nature. 
His  nature  binds  him ;  if  a  fallen  nature,  downward.  This 
nature  he  cannot  reverse.  He  cannot  renew  his  own  will, 
change  his  own  heart,  nor  regenerate  his  bad  nature.  While 
therefore,  he  is  free,  so  far  as  forces  outside  are  concerned, 
his  will  is  not  free  but  is  bound  by  the  strain  of  his  nature. 
It  is  still  "the  carnal  mind"  that  will  not — the  "enmity"  that 
"cannot  please  God." 

An  illustration  occurs  from  the  hand.  It  is  simple,  but 
perhaps  may  be  helpful.  A  man  is  free  to  use  his  hand. 
The  man  is  free,  but  the  hand  is  not  free ;  the  arm  and 
the  muscles  control  it.  The  hand  is  the  slave  of  the  muscle, 
and  acts  as  the  muscle  compels.  In  like  manner,  man  is 
free  to  use  his  will,  and  is  therefore  always  a  free  agent; 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  147 

but  the  will  itself  is  not  free.  It  is  controlled  by  the  affec- 
tions, which  are  evil  and  earthly  and  sensual,  and  these 
again  are  controlled  by  the  understanding  and  judgment, 
which  call  evil  good  and  which  are  perverted,  blinded,  de- 
luded, by  the  god  of  this  world. 

Another  illustration  is  in  point — Niagara!  The  water  is 
free.  No  one  is  forcing  it.  No  one  is  taking  up  bucket- 
fuls  and  pouring  them  over  the  falls.  The  water  is  unforced 
from  without,  but  it  forces  itself.  Each  drop  pushes  an- 
other, and  so,  while  Niagara  is  free  and  rejoices  and  leaps 
in  its  freedom,  the  drops  are  not  free,  nor  can  Niagara  roll 
itself  backward.  Niagara  goes  down,  is  bound  to  go  down, 
and  cannot    go  up. 

That  is  how  the  Bible  puts  the  impotence  of  fallen  man. 
Free  to  sin,  but  free  from  holiness — helpless  toward  God, 
the  volume,  river,  trend  and  tendency  of  his  nature  is  down. 
"As  a  fountain  casteth  out  her  waters,"  says  Jeremiah, 
"so  we  cast  out  our  wickedness."  "Can  a  fig  tree  bear  olive 
berries?"  Who  can  bring  a  clean  thing  out  of  an  un- 
clean? Can  free  will  do  it?  Can  any  thing  or  creature  do 
it?     No  !  not  one. 

Man  will  not,  because  it  is  not  in  him  to  will ;  he  is  stunted, 
and  set  in  a  fallen  direction ;  and  man  cannot,  because  an 
evil  eye  affects  the  heart,  and  a  deceived  heart  turns  him 
aside,  ever  aside,  from  the  mark  of  the  prize  of  God's  call- 
ing. Man's  inability  is,  therefore,  total,  innate,  ineradicable 
by  any  self-help  or  self-motion,  by  any  twisting,  effort,  or 
desire  of  Nature.  Man  can  no  more  turn  to  God  than  the 
dead  can  sit  up  in  their  coffins.  He  can  no  more  originate 
a  right  desire  than  he  can  create  a  universe.  God  and  God 
the  Holy  Ghost  alone,  by  sovereign,  special  interference, 
calls  dead  sinners  to  life,  and  "creates  within  them  the  de- 
sires of  their  hearts" — the  first  faint  fluttering  of  a  breath 
toward  holiness. 

Such  is  the  representation  of  the  Bondage  of  the  Will, 
in  perfect  harmony  with  Free  Agency,  which  the  Bible  fur- 
nishes, and  for  which  we  are  bound  to  contend.  It  is  readily 
granted,  however,  that  such  a  notion  of  things  would  not 
and  could  not  occur  to  man  of  himself.  It  is  as  much  be- 
yond his   conception   as   the   stars   beyond   his   touch,   and 


148  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

when  revealed,  the  first  effect  is  to  bewilder,  dazzle  and  con- 
found. 

It  is  readily  granted  that  God's  thoughts  on  this  sub- 
ject are  higher  than  our  thoughts — that  such  a  notion  of 
things  would  not  and  could  not  occur  to  the  unregenerate 
consciousness  (for  the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God),  but  only  to  the  consciousness  which 
has  become  Christian,  and  more — not  always  instantly  to 
that;  but  slowly  and  by  degrees  through  the  teaching  and 
interpretations  of  the  Spirit.  Witness  the  difference  be- 
tween Whitefield  converted  suddenly,  consciously  by  force, 
and  the  gradual  experience  of  Dr.  Scott,  the  commentator, 
who  began  a  radical,  intense  Arminian  and  ended  in  a  full 
surrender  to  the  Doctrines  of  Free  Grace. 

Suppose  I  have  fallen  into  the  water  and  am  blindly 
struggling  and  frantically  beating  with  my  arms.  All  my 
efforts  only  serve  more  surely  to  sink  me.  I  go  down — 
again — the  third  time.  I  have  lost  consciousness.  When 
I  come  to,  I  find  myself  upon  the  river  bank.  I  look  at  the 
water  and  I  say:  "Bravo!  I  have  done  well.  How  I  must 
have  struggled !  That  last  stroke  did  the  work  and  landed 
me  safe  on  the  shore."  I  say  this,  but  I  am  not  satisfied.  A 
person  approaches.  He  is  dripping  with  water.  He  says : 
"You  were  gone !  I  saw  you  go  down  the  last  time,  and 
I  dived  under  and  saved  you !"  I  think  it  over  and  I  say : 
"That  sounds  like  fact,  like  common  sense ;  it  seems  the 
only  satisfying  explanation" ;  yet  consciousness  does  not 
help  me.  I  have  no  recollection  of  rescue  by  force  and 
from  outside.     I  must  take  it  on  trust. 

There  are  three  conditions  of  the  Will. 

i.  That  of  holiness  fixed  and  confirmed  in  holiness.  That 
is  the  will  of  God,  of  Christ  incarnate,  and  of  the  holy 
angels.  Non  posse  peccare,  as  Augustine  says :  "Who  can- 
not sin." 

2.  That  of  holiness  on  trial,  unconfirmed,  and  therefore 
mutable.  That  of  Lucifer,  who  fell  by  vanity;  whose  eye 
was  caught  by  self-reflection.  That  of  innocent  Adam  in 
Eden.     Posse  non  peccare — Able  not  to  sin,  but  might. 

3.  The  fallen  will.  Unholy,  free  from  holiness.  Non 
posse  non  peccare — "Unable  not  to  sin ;  sin's  helpless  slave." 
This  third  condition,  of  the  fallen  will,  we  argue  from  the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  149 

Scripture.     And  the  arguments  to  which  we  shall  confine 
ourselves  are  five. 

(1.)  Direct  and  plain  assertion.  "When  we  were  yet 
without  strength,  in  due  time  Christ  died  for  the  ungodly." 
''No  man  can  come  unto  Me  except  the  Father  which  hath 
sent  Me  draw  him."  "Therefore  said  I  unto  you  that  no 
man  can  come  to  Me,  except  it  were  given  him  of  my 
Father."  "It  is  the  Spirit  that  quickeneth,  the  flesh  profit  cth 
nothing."  "Because  the  carnal  mind  is  enmity  against  God; 
for  it  is  not  subject  unto  the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed  can 
be."  "That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which 
is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit."  "Which  were  born  not  of  the 
will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God."  "So 
then,  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  runneth, 
but  of  God  that  showeth  mercy."  "To  will  is  present  with 
me"  [*.  e.,  the  Faculty  of  Will],  "but  how  to  perform  that 
which  is  good"  [the  power] ,  "I  find  not."  These  few  texts, 
taken  from  hundreds  equally  peremptory,  must  suffice  for 
this  argument. 

(2.)  The  Bondage  of  the  Will  is  not  only  positively  and 
plainly  asserted  in  the  Scripture,  but  it  is  everywhere  im- 
plied. 

It  is  implied  in  regeneration.  A  man  comes  into  this 
world  passive,  without  either  his  own  act  or  consciousness, 
so  does  he  enter  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  is  either  this, 
or  we  deny  the  New  Birth,  and  teach  the  nonsense  of  self- 
procreation. 
Again:  If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  xairij  nri6tS 
(new  creation).  This  carries  us  right  back  to  the  first 
creation,  from  nothing,  and  to  the  infusion  into  us  of  some- 
thing which  was  not  in  us  before,  but  now  can  never  be 
absent.  Call  it  "Christ  in  us,"  or  a  "seed,"  or  the  "spirit 
born  of  the  Spirit,"  or  call  it  what  you  will ;  it  is  a  fact 
that  cannot  be  gainsaid.     Creation  is  an  object  of  power. 

Again:  "You  who  were  dead  hath  He  quickened."  Is 
not  resurrection  an  object  of  power? 

Again:  Because  faith  is  said  to  be  "the  gift  of  God," 
and  a  man  takes  a  gift  from  outside.  Faith  is  the  current 
of  the  Divine  life,  running  through  the  new-born,  which 
is  the  river  of  Throne-water,  the  impetus  and  energy  of 
God. 


150  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

And  once  more :  The  description  of  the  work  of  the 
Spirit  as  the  interposition  and  impingement  of  Omnipo- 
tence— "Thy  people  shall  be  willing  in  the  day  of  Thy 
power." 

(3.)  Add  to  these  assertions  and  implications,  illustra- 
tions; as,  for  instance,  the  turning  back  of  water  which 
cannot  run  up-hill,  nor  rise  above  its  own  level.  ''Turn 
again  our  captivity  as  the  streams  of  the  South."  "All 
my  fresh  springs  are  in  Thee." 

Take  again  Ezekiel's  Vision  of  the  Dry  Bones — "very 
dry" — "no  flesh  on  them."  The  question  is:  "Can  these 
bones  live?"  Free-will  says,  "Certainly.  It  is  a  mockery 
to  say  to  them,  'Hear  the  Word  of  the  Lord,'  unless  they 
can  hear  it."  But  Inspiration  answers  not  so,  "Son  of  man, 
cry !"  "Cry,  'Come  from  the  four  winds,  O  Breath  and 
breathe  upon  these  slain  that  they  may  live.'  " 

Ah !  "Lazarus  Come  Forth !"  gives  the  Free  choice  to 
a  dead  man  and  unwraps  the  cerements  of  Will,  as  it 
proclaims  the  fiat,  "Loose  him  and  let  him  go !"  For, 
if  the  Son  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed. 
Ah !  "Stretch  forth  thy  hand !"  brings  in  the  miracle  of  will- 
ingness to  venture,  as  it  does  the  miracle  of  power,  enabling 
the  soul  paralyzed  and  conscious  of  its  helplessness  to 
cry,  Da  quod  jubes,  et  jube  quod  vis! — "Give,  only  give 
what  Thou  commandest,  and  then  command  what  Thou 
wilt." 

These  and  all  miracles  proclaim  aloud,  by  physical  ex- 
pression, the  momentous  moral  fact.  Can  blindness  make 
itself  to  see?  Can  deafness  unstop  its  own  ears?  dumbness 
its  own  lips?  Can  palsy  leap  and  leprosy  exude  its  loath- 
some virus?  Then  may  the  Will  work  backward,  revolu- 
tionize itself,  fling  off  contagion  wandering  through  our 
crooked  veins,  and,  tearing  from  itself  the  poisoned  shirt  of 
Nessus,  speak  the  emancipating  edict — "I  will!  Self,  be 
clean !" 

(4.)  The  Scripture  doctrine,  thus  asserted,  and  implied 
and  illustrated,  gathers  in  the  Scope  of  Revelation.  All 
other  doctrines  hang  upon  and  confirm  it.  What  is  Election 
but  God  choosing,  because  we  cannot  choose?  What  is 
Regeneration  but  God  quickening  the  dead  who  cannot  stir  ? 
What  is  Perseverance  but  God  carrying  on  a  work  which 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  151 

He  has  begun,  where  man,  beginning  must  infallibly  break 
down  ? 

(5.)  To  these  arguments  from  Scripture  let  us  add,  and 
finally,  the  utter  absence  of  any  Scriptural  authority  for 
the  assertion  that  the  Will  is  free;  or  that  power  must 
equal  obligation,  or  that  any  unregenerate  man  can  will 
aught  whatever  in  the  direction  of  God,  or  aught  what- 
soever but  sin. 

Surely,  if  the  ground  of  obligation  be  ability,  we  have 
a  right  to  expect  the  Scripture  to  say  so.  Instead  of  this 
it  says  the  other  thing,  and  says  it  every  time,  and  no- 
where, in  a  single  instance,  contradicts  itself.  Its  uniform 
refrain,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation  is — "Every  imagina- 
tion of  the  thought  is  evil" — "no  man  can  come  to  Me  ex- 
cept the  Father  draw."  Free-will  can  do  nothing  without 
special  grace  and  an  effectual  call. 

But,  do  not  exhortations  and  commands  take  our  ability 
for  granted?  And  when  God  says  "Do  a  thing,"  does  it 
not  imply  that  we  can? 

It  does  not,  for 

1.  Direct  assertions  cannot  be  invalidated  by  mere  in- 
directions— the  Indicative  by  a  Subjunctive;  the  positive 
by  an  "if."  Saying  "Stretch  forth  thy  hand"  does  not 
imply,  "Paralysis  can  stretch  it."  Saying  "Ye  will  not 
come  to  Me,"  does  not  imply  "You  can  will  to  come  to  Me." 
The  fact  is  just  the  opposite.  The  diseased  will  is  the 
trouble.     "Ye  cannot  will." 

This  is  splendidly  argued  by  Luther  in  his  Diatribe  against 
Erasmus.  "If  thou  wilt  equal  Virgil,  my  Maevius,  thou 
must  sing  a  more  exalted  strain.    Alas !  Maevius  cannot." 

2.  And  again :  the  dogma  "Power  equals  Obligation" 
proves  too  much.  I  ought  to  keep  the  commandments, 
therefore  I  can;  therefore  perfection  is  possible;  there- 
fore Sisyphus  rolls  his  stone  to  the  top  of  the  mountain ; 
therefore  I  can  climb  a  Sinai  all  aflame,  and  which  not 
even  a  beast,  stupid  as  he  is,  would  think  to  touch. 

The  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  Inability  is  thus  seen 
and  soleminized  from  the  fact  that  the  whole  Bible  is  di- 
rected— the  strength  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  if  one  may  so 
say,  gathered  up  to  prove  it — to  show  that  man  can  neither 
save  himself,  nor  help  to  do  it — can  neither  turn  himself, 


152  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

nor  help  to  do  it ;  that  common  grace,  however  it  may 
move  on  men  is  not  sufficient ;  that  while  men  have  power 
downward,  they  have  no  power  upward ;  that  a  fallen 
creature  can  only  keep  falling;  and  that  if  ever  men  turn 
to  God,  it  must  be  by  God's  turning  them,  and  if  ever  they 
are  willing,  it  must  be  because  made  willing  in  the  day 
of  sovereign  and  Almighty  power. 

The  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  Inability  is  further 
seen  and  solemnized  from  the  fact  that  without  it  men  will 
never  cease  their  fleshly  efforts  and  their  fleshly  willings 
and  their  fleshly  vows,  and  simply  trust  on  Christ.  Sisyphus 
must  quit,  and  let  Another  roll  that  stone.  Wordly  Wise- 
man must  fly  from  Sinai  to  Golgotha. 

A  sense  of  helplessness,  absolute,  utter,  is  the  first  req- 
uisite to  any  sound  conversion,  and  this  sense  of  helpless- 
ness is  nothing  more  nor  less,  nor  other,  than  old-fashioned 
conviction  of  sin. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE.  153 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  GRACE. 


"For  the  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation  hath  appeared 
unto  all  men  teaching  us  that  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly 
lusts,  we  should  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly  in  this  present 
world." — Titus  ii:ii,   12. 


Practical  Christianity  has  for  its  ground  and  motive  doc- 
trinal Christianity.  It  is  principle,  straight  through,  that 
is  to  sustain  men  and  move  men  according  to  God.  It  is 
principle,  not  emotion,  not  impulse.  That  is  the  root- 
thought  of  the  Epistle  to  Titus.  St.  Paul  speaks  first,  in 
the  first  chapter,  of  church  order  and  holiness  in  the 
church — then  he  speaks,  in  the  second  chapter,  of  family 
order  and  holiness  in  the  family — then  he  speaks,  in  the 
third  chapter,  of  social  order  and  holiness  in  our  relation 
to  the  world.  But  each  of  these  three  phases  of  conduct 
is  described  as  the  outcome  of  a  great  truth  clearly  known 
and  quietly  taken  for  granted,  namely,  that  of  our  personal 
relation  to  God — a  relation  which  is  all  that  the  affections 
can  desire,  and  which  never  changes,  because  it  depends 
entirely  and  forever  upon  what  God  is,  whose  self-con- 
sistency is  perfect. 

For  the  grace  of  God  which  bringeth  salvation,  which 
comes  down  from  heaven  with  it,  which  does  not  look  for 
righteousness  from  us  but  gives  it,  hath  appeared  to  all 
men,  teaching  us  that  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly 
lusts,  we  should  live  soberly,  righteously  and  godly  in  this 
present  world. 

In  the  exposition  of  these  words,  according  to  the  line 
of  apostolic  thought,  I  wish  to  follow  three  inquiries: 

I.  What  is  the  Doctrine  of  Grace? 

II.  How  this  Doctrine  hath  appeared  unto  all  men. 

III.  Its  practical  effect. 


154  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

I.  What  is  the  Doctrine  of  Grace? 

The  word  grace  means  favor  to  the  ill-deserving;  the 
doctrine  of  grace  then  must  mean  that  system  of  truth 
which  has  for  its  foundation  the  ill-desert  of  sinners  before 
God. 

Grace  is  something  which  must  always  come  in  after 
justice.  It  is  something  entirely  supplementary  to  any 
work  of  righteousness — something  over  and  above.  It  is 
imperative  that  we  should  see  this,  otherwise  we  can  have 
no  proper  conception  of  the  plan  of  redemption.  So  long 
as  we  imagine  that  God  has  to  deal  with  innocent  creatures 
or  with  creatures  who  have  a  claim  upon  Him,  who  have 
not  already  fallen  under  His  justice,  we  shall  be  utterly 
non-plussed  and  unable  to  receive  the  first  and  simplest 
propositions  of  the  Gospel.  The  fact  is  that,  before  grace 
can  come  in,  the  bottom  must  be  knocked  out  from  under 
man,  and  he  must  be  let  down  to  the  moral  status  of  a 
devil.  The  level  on  which  we  stand,  my  brethren,  is  pre- 
cisely that  of  fallen  spirits.  The  only  difference  between 
unregenerate  man  and  devils  is  this,  that  man  has  a  body 
and  devils  have  not.  Man  has  the  nature  of  Satan — "Ye 
are  of  your  father  the  devil."  Man  is  as  blind  as  Satan — 
"Ye  were  sometimes  darkness."  Man  is  as  wilful  as  Satan 
— "The  lusts  of  your  father  ye  will  do."  Man  is  led  and 
energized  by  Satan — "The  spirit  that  now  worketh  in  the 
children  of  disobedience."  Lost  man  is  a  lost  spirit,  and 
God  has  a  right  to  deal  with  him  as  He  deals  with  lost 
spirits.     That  is  the  fundamental  proposition  of  grace. 

Well,  now:  How  has  God  dealt  with  lost  spirits?  He 
has  condemned  them.  He  has  cast  them  out  of  His  pres- 
ence. He  has  doomed  them  to  hell.  Let  us,  in  imagination, 
lift  the  cover  from  hell.  What  do  we  see  there?  We  see 
millions  of  once  glorious  creatures  writhing  in  torments. 
We  see  them  committed  to  a  destiny  which  must  grow 
worse  and  worse,  and  which  is  unchangeable.  Forever  and 
forever  each  single  devil  must  suffer.  Not  one  can  ever 
escape.  That  is  justice.  It  is  the  stern  and  iron  reign  of 
law. 

What  do  we  say  of  that?  How  do  we  feel  about  it? 
We  say  it  is  right.  We  acquiesce.  I  never  yet  heard  any 
man  complain  of  God,  for  treating  the  devils  as  a  criminal 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  155 

class.  I  never  yet  heard  of  a  man  who  sat  down  and  wept 
over  devils,  because  of  what  they  had  to  suffer.  God  has 
punished  devils  and  He  is  going  to  punish  them.  He  is 
going  to  spend  the  exhaustless  powers  of  retribution  on 
their  immortality — to  pour  wrath  on  them  to  the  utter- 
most. 

Now,  suppose  God  were  to  determine  to  bring  in  a  salva- 
tion for  the  devils.  He  is  not  going  to  do  it.  Their  affairs 
are  closed  up.     Righteousness  with  them   has   reached   its 

everlasting  finality But.  for  the  sake  of  illustrating 

the  point  before  us,  let  us  suppose  a  salvation  for  devils. 
Must  it  necessarily  be  for  all  devils?  Why?  Why  must 
God  save  all  if  He  saves  any?  Why  has  God  no  option? 
Why  has  He  less  liberty  than  I  have,  when  to  one  of  two 
street  beggars  I  give  a  dime  and  to  another  nothing?  If 
God  is  free  at  the  first  step,  why  is  He  not  free  at  each 
succeeding  step?  If  not,  where  does  He  lose  His  freedom? 
If  He  may  save  or  not  save,  may  He  not  save  few  or  many 
— one  or  ten  thousand.  I  would  like  to  sharpen  emphasis 
upon  this  point.  I  have  no  desire  to  evade  it,  but  rather 
to  pursue  it  and  to  corner  it — to  compel  a  categorical 
reply. 

Is  God  bound  to  save  everything  that  sins  and  suffers? 
No,  for 

1  st.  He  does  not  do  it.  Wre  see  unrelieved  suffering  all 
around   us. 

2.  God's  justice  will  not  let  Him  do  it.  There  is  an 
eternal  principle  in  God  which  must  treat  sin  as  sin  de- 
serves. 

God,  then,  is  free  to  save  or  not  to  save.  His  will  is  en- 
tirely untramelled.  Suppose  He  says,  "I  will  save,"  still 
has  He  power  over  His  own  will  to  determine  how  many; 
or  else  from  the  moment  of  becoming  a  Saviour  He  un- 
crowns   Himself   as    a   God. 

In  the  case  before  us,  God  might  come  down  and  save 
certain,  we  will  say,  eight  devils,  while  He  left  the  others 
just  where  they  were.  Imagine  this  and  what  would  be 
the  effect?  Why,  in  the  case  of  the  majority  they  would 
continue  to  get  what  they  have  been  getting — what  they 
were  sentenced  to,  what  they  deserve.  In  them  God  and 
His  justice  are  glorified.    In  the  case  of  the  others,  of  the 


156  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

eight,  the  thing  done  would  be  supplementary.  It  would 
not  be  necessary ;  it  would  not  be  expected ;  it  would  not 
be  called  for.  It  would  therefore  be  a  simple  and  unmixed 
gratuity,  and,  to  those  benefited,  this  gratuity  would  be 
the  spring  and  cumulating  motive  of  all  possible  eternal 
gratitude  and  praise. 

Now  this  illustration  of  the  devils  is  the  exact  fact  with 
reference  to  fallen  man.  Our  salvation  is  built  upon  the 
condemnation  of  devils,  into  which  we  also  have  fallen. 
But  in  our  case,  God  makes  a  difference.  After  the 
sentence  has  been  pronounced — after  the  gallows-tree  has 
been  erected — after  the  drop  has  been  sprung,  God  brings 
in  a  new  thing — a  thing  which  has  entered  no  thought, 
which  is  beyond  a  creatural  imagination,  and  which  circu- 
lates throughout  all  heavenly  regions  and  througout  all 
holy  and  angelic  populations  an  overwhelming,  yet  blissful, 
surprise. 

That  thing  which  God  brings  in  is  grace.  Eternal  grace 
which  contemplates  a  ruined,  guilty,  utterly  corrupt  and 
helpless  sinner — a  collapse  in  sinnership — a  synocope  of 
sin.  Grace  is  a  provision  for  men  who  are  so  fallen  that 
they  cannot  lift  the  axe  of  justice — so  corrupt  that  they 
cannot  change  their  own  natures — so  averse  to  God  that 
they  cannot  turn  to  Him — so  blind  that  they  cannot  see 
Him — so  deaf  that  they  cannot  hear  Him  and  so  dead  that 
He  Himself  must  open  their  graves  and  then  lift  them  into 
resurrection. 

Grace  then  is  not  like  justice,  a  necessary  attribute  in 
God.     It  is  an  optional  attribute,  and  if  optional  includes 

1st.  As  its  first  element  an  everlasting  choice.  Suppose 
there  were  no  choice.  Suppose  God  had  precipitated  our 
whole  race  to  death,  as  He  did  angels,  from  the  moment 
that  they  sinned.  God  might  have  done  this.  It  would 
have  been  no  excess  of  severity.  It  would  have  been  jus- 
tice, only  justice  still  achieving  its  untarnished  if  appalling 
triumphs.  But  what  then?  Why  then  a  race  drops  out — 
a  link,  the  human  is  lost  to  the  universe — a  whole  in- 
telligent nature  made  capable  of  the  eternal  enjoyment  of 
God  comes  short  of  that  for  which  it  came  into  existence. 
What  then?  Why  then  Satan  conquers  and  stalks  over 
the  battle-field  the  undisputed  monarch  of  a  subjugated 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  157 

world.  What  then?  Why  then  the  law  which  was  given, 
first  of  all,  not  that  men  should  suffer  by  its  penalty,  but 
that  God  should  be  glorified  by  its  fulfilment,  is  never  com- 
plied with.  Thus  justice,  in  the  destruction  of  our  race 
would  triumph — but  in  the  defeat  of  all  the  other  per- 
fections of  God. 

Suppose  the  opposite — that  God  had  saved  all  men. 
What  then  ? 

Why  then  there  is  the  obliteration  of  justice.  To  all 
eternity  it  can  never  be  made  to  appear  that  we  did  really 
deserve  to  die.  In  spite  of  the  cross  we  ourselves  should 
doubt  it — angels  would  doubt  it.  The  universe  would 
doubt  it.  Some  men  must  die  to  set  that  doubt  at  rest. 
Over  the  grave  of  some  there  must  go  forth  the  announce- 
ment, in  terms  at  once  decisive  and  incontrovertible,  that 
"all  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God,"  and 
that  those  who  are  saved  "were  by  nature  the  children 
of  wrath  even  as  others."  Without  this  there  will  be  a 
race  of  sinners,  no  individual  of  whom  ever  gets  his  per- 
sonal ill-deserts,  or  ever  believes  that  he  had  any !  With- 
out this  there  will  be  one  world  afloat  among  the  worlds 
which  flings  a  jarring  discord  over  all  the  harp-strings  of 
the  heavenly  minstrelsy ;  which  sports  in  a  derisive  free- 
dom ;  and  which  laughs  aloud  at  righteousness. 

But  suppose  a  third  thing.  Suppose  justice  and  mercy 
combined.  Suppose  that  when  all  deserve  condemnation, 
and  all  are  seen  to  deserve  it,  some  are  saved — a  multitude 
whom  no  man  can  number,  the  vast  majority,  in  the 
grand  total — to  the  vindication  of  each  several  attribute 
in  God ;  to  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  His  grace !  So  that 
each  perfection  in  Him  may  appear  in  poise  and  balance — 
so  that  the  display  of  one  may  not  be  the  adumbration  of 
another — so  that  He  may  not  seem  to  hang  mid-heaven, 
obscured,  half-hidden,  half-eclipsed,  the  segment  of  a 
mutilated  sun,  but  bursting  through  the  clouds,  and  throw- 
ing them  behind  His  back  into  remoter  and  remoter  hori- 
zons. He  may  shine  forth 

"A  God  all  o'er  consummate,  absolute, 
Full  orbed,  in  His  whole  round  of  rays  complete." 


158  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

In  order  to  this  there  must  be  a  choice.  Election  is  the 
Alpha  of  grace — the  first,  most  humbling,  and  yet  most 
encouraging  manifestation  of  God. 

It  is  the  first  manifestation,  since  if  we  cannot  stir,  God 
must. 

It  is  a  humbling  manifestation,  since  it  grasps  the  golden 
mace  of  the  Divine  Sovereignity,  swings  it  aloft,  and  brains 
a  man  of  all  his  thoughts,  imaginations,  feelings,  efforts — 
lays  him  prostrate  in  the  dust,  and  then  stoops  down  and, 
writing  death  upon  his  members,  thus  destroys  that  faith 
in  self  which  hinders  him  from  resting  upon  that  which  is 
outside  of  self,  the  work  of  Christ  for  sinners. 

Election  is  an  encouraging  doctrine,  since  it  as  a  drag-net 
cast  into  the  water  not  to  drive  away  fish  but  to  draw  them. 
If  I  am  the  lost  creature  that  the  Bible  says  I  am,  then 
since  I  can  never  choose  to  set  my  affections  on  God,  God 
must  choose  to  set  His  affections  on  me.  He  must  come 
out  and  down  to  me  in  free  and  overflowing  love.  He 
must  begin  to  work  upon  me.  He  must  create  within  me 
the  desires  of  my  heart.  He  must  awaken  within  me  a 
Divine  curiosity.  He  must  make  me  feel  my  great  neces- 
sity, and  draw  me  on  to  Christ.  He  must  overcome  my 
hesitations,  and  allay  my  apprehensions,  and  dissipate  my 
fears,  and  bring  me  to  assured,  unchangeable  repose  upon 
His   faithful  promise. 

Now  what  is  all  this  but  the  expansion  of  the  Bible  state- 
ment, "According  as  He  hath  chosen  us  in  Him  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world,  that  we  might  be  holy,  not  because 
we  are  holy,  but  that  we  might  be  holy  and  without  blame 
before  Him.  In  love  having  predestinated  us  into  the 
adoption  of  children  by  Jesus  Christ  to  Himself." 

And  in  all  this  there  is  solid  comfort  and  encouragement 
for  every  disquieted  soul.  For  since  Divine  election  is  im- 
partial— since  it  finds  in  the  best  of  us  nothing  to  attract, 
and  in  the  basest  of  us  nothing  to  repel — since  it  comes  to 
give  us  everything  and  to  exclude  us  from  nothing;  why 
then  the  worst  of  sinners,  and  the  worst  sinners  of  the 
worst,  are  quite  as  likely  to  be  swept  within  the  circle  of 
its  mighty  and  compassionate  and  conquering  consolations, 
as  are  those  who,  in  the  pretentions  of  an  unimpeachable 


THE   DOCTRINES    OF    GRACE.  159 

morality,  and  who,  in  the  kindly  judgments  of  men,  stand 
nearest  of  all. 

2d.  The  second  element  in  grace  is  absolute  redemption — 
that  Christ  dies  for  the  elect  part  of  fallen  sinners  and  for 
that  part  alone. 

This  appears — 

1.  From  what  has  already  been  said.  The  salvation 
brought  in  through  the  reconciliation  of  the  Divine  attri- 
butes contemplates  a  part  and  a  part  only. 

2.  It  appears  from  the  consistency  of  the  Holy  Trinity 
with  itself.  If  the  Father  elects,  the  Son,  in  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  Father,  cannot  enlarge  upon  that  election. 

3.  It  appears  from  the  tenor  of  the  Eternal  Covenant — 
"I  have  made  a  covenant  with  my  chosen,  I  have  sworn 
unto  the  Beloved  my  servant,  Thy  seed  will  I  establish 
forever."  Here  the  covenant  is  in  so  many  words  confined 
to  the  seed. 

4.  It  appears  from  the  absurdity  of  the  opposite.  For  if 
Christ  died  for  all  alike,  then  He  did  no  more  for  those 
who  are  saved  than  for  those  who  perish.  And  if  He  died 
for  all  alike,  then  He  bore  the  curse  for  many  who  are 
now  bearing  the  curse  for  themselves,  and  He  suffered 
punishment  for  many  who  are  yet  lifting  up  their  own 
eyes  in  hell,  being  in  torments,  and  He  paid  the  redemp- 
tion price  for  many  who  are  yet  paying  in  their  own 
eternal  anguish  the  wages  of  sin,  which  is  death.  To  say 
this  is  of  course  to  convict  God  of  the  grossest  injustice, 
for  it  is  to  represent  Him  as  receiving  from  the  hands  of 
Christ  full  atonement,  and  then  as  dashing  down  to  per- 
dition millions  of  those  for  whom  Christ  had  died  to  atone. 
The  story  is  told  of  Pizarro  that  when  he  had  imprisoned 
the  Peruvian  Inca,  that  monarch,  lifting  his  hand  to  the 
level  of  his  head  upon  the  wall  behind  him,  promised  to  fill 
the  apartment  with  silver  and  gold  to  that  level,  provided 
Pizarro  would  let  him  go  free.  Pizarro  agreed  to  this, 
and  then  when  the  loyal  subjects  of  the  Inca,  by  denying 
themselves  to  the  utmost,  had  brought  together  the  requi- 
site ransom,  Pizarro  led  forth  their  beloved  Inca,  and  before 
their  smiling  expectant  faces  put  him  to  excruciating  death. 
That  Pizarro,  lifted  and  broadened  to  infinite  proportions, 
is  the  shadow  which  a  universal  atonement  projects  upon 


160  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

God — it  makes  an  infinite  Pizarro  and  subverts  the  very 
substratum  upon  which  is  built  His  throne. 

5.  That  Christ  died  for  His  people  alone  appears  from 
the  fact  that  otherwise  there  is  no  real  and  complete  atone- 
ment. By  atonement  we  understand  the  work  of  a  sub- 
stitute. Now,  if  Christ  was  the  substitute  of  all  men,  He 
failed,  for  all  men  are  not  saved  by  Him.  But  if  He  was 
the  substitute  of  His  people  He  did  not  fail,  for  His  people 
are  saved  by  Him,  and  we  have  an  atonement  which  truly 
atones,  a  redemption  which  truly  redeems. 

6.  The  doctrine  of  universality — shall  I  say  the  doctrine 
of  a  vague  atonement — surrenders  certainty  while  seeking' 
to  captivate.  Suppose  we  preach  broadly  that  Christ  died 
for  all  men  and  for  all  alike.  The  first  effect  of  this 
preaching,  no  doubt,  will  be  to  brighten  men's  hopes,  to 
open  wide  horizons  and  apparently  to  bring  salvation  home 
to  them.  But  what  is  the  after  result?  Will  not  every  man, 
in  reflecting,  say  to  himself,  "What  is  this  salvation  which 
has  been  brought  home  to  me?  Is  it  not  a  benefit  com- 
mon to  me  with  souls  already  lost?  Was  it  not  once  theirs 
as  now  it  is  mine?  What  assurance  then  can  it  give  me 
that  I,  like  them,  may  not  be  lost?  If  multitudes  have 
perished  for  whom  Christ  has  died,  why  may  not  I?"  In 
order  to  certainty  then,  some  other  proposition  must  be 
brought  in — some  special,  call  it  narrow  interest,  if  you 
please,  in  Christ's  death — but  something  which  shall  make 
salvation  a  fixture  and  secure  upon  granitic  foundations, 
that  come  what  may,  amid  all  changes,  though  mountains 
be  upheaved  and  hills  depart,  nothing  shall  occur  to  alienate 
God's  loving  kindness. 

7.  Christ  died  for  His  people  in  such  a  way  as  to  save 
them,  or  else  He  is  not  the  faithful  Saviour  whom  we  have 
known  and  loved  and  honored.  For  my  part  I  would  rather, 
infinitely  rather,  believe  that  Christ  had  never  redeemed  a 
single  soul  than  believe  that  He  so  cast  shame,  dishonor 
and  reproach  upon  His  own  depthless  agonies,  and  upon 
the  very  need  of  an  Atonement,  as  to  lose  sight  of  that 
soul  after  having  gone  through  what  he  did  to  redeem 
it.  Rather,  infinitely  rather,  would  I  believe  that  Christ 
never  loved  at  all  than  that  having  loved  unto  death  He 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  161 

had  not  strength  to  love  all  the  way  through,  but  failing  in 
the  extreme  crisis  lost  what  He  died  for. 

3d.  The  third  element  in  grace  is  quickening.  Is  there 
any  such  thing  as  quickening?  What  does  that  mean? 
It  means  giving  life.  Can  lost  man  give  life  to  himself? 
Can  nature  rise  above  nature?  There  is  needed,  therefore, 
in  addition  to  the  work  of  the  Father,  and  to  the  work  of 
the  Son,  the  work  of  the  Spirit.  That  which  is  spiritual 
must  be  born  of  the  spirit. 

When  we  look  around  us  we  see  four  kinds  of  life — 
mineral,  vegetable,  animal,  intellectual.  These  four  kinds 
of  life  are  different.  Can  they  have  anything  in  common? 
Can  they  replace  one  another?  Can  the  rock  by  volition 
turn  itself  into  a  tree,  the  tree  transmute  itself  into  an  ox, 
the  ox  make  itself  into  a  man?  There  are  those  who 
say  they  think  so.  There  are  those  who  have  brought  in 
what  they  are  pleased  to  call  "Development,"  expressly  to 
deny,  in  face  of  all  the  facts,  that  greatest  fact  of  all,  "Ye 
must  be  born  again !"  But  that  which  is  not  and  which 
cannot  be  in  the  least,  how  shall  it  be  in  the  greatest?  That 
which  is  not  and  cannot  be  in  the  seen,  how  shall  it  be  in 
the  unseen?  That  which  is  not  and  cannot  be  in  the 
temporal,  how  shall  it  be  in  the  eternal?  As  well  might 
Satan  will  himself  into  a  seraph  as  fallen  man,  by  efforts 
of  volition,  will  himself  into  that  new  creation  which  is 
called  a  "child  of  God." 

The  Doctrine  of  Grace  then,  is  this — that  dead  nature 
lies  on  a  dead  level.  That  on  this  dead  level  God  comes 
in — that  the  Father  elects,  the  Son,  redeems,  the  Spirit 
quickens — and  that  by  resurrection  lifted  to  another  level, 
the  new  life  runs  on  and  on  and  on  forever! 

The  Doctrine  of  Grace  therefore  is  nothing  but  the 
Doctrine  of  the  Holy  and  Undivided  Trinity.  It  is  nothing 
but  saying,  "Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and 
to  the  Holy  Ghost!"  It  is  nothing  but  beginning  here 
below  the  prelude  of  that  new,  unspeakable  and  everlasting 
song,  Holy !  Holy !  Holy !  Lord  God  Almighty. 

II.  Hoiv  has  this  Doctrine  of  Grace,  which  bringeth  sal- 
vation, appeared  unto  all  men  ?  It  has  appeared  unto  all 
men  in  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  which  is  not  distinct- 
ively the  setting  forth  of  Divine  Sovereignty,  nor  of  a  nev; 


162  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

and  supernatural  birth,  but  is  the  offer  of  Jesus  Christ  to 
all  men,  everywhere,  of  every  condition,  irrespective  of 
whatever  else  be  true  or  untrue — certain  or  uncertain,  clear 
or  dark. 

In  the  Gospel  proper  there  are  "neither  claims,  nor  com- 
mands, nor  duties,  nor  threatenings."  It  brings  salvation, 
it  does  not  exact  nor  demand  it.  In  it  there  is  reported  a 
peace  purchased  for  poor  sinners  by  the  blood  of  Jesus, 
sufficient  in  its  nature  for  all — suited  to  all  and  free  to 
all  who  will  take  it.  The  Gospel  which  we  get  from  this 
book  and  which  we  preach  is  this — For  all  His  people, 
Jesus  Christ  stands  substitute.  They  are  His  people  who 
put  their  trust  in  Him.  If  you  trust  Him,  my  brother — if 
the  Spirit  draws  you,  and,  what  man  dare  say  the  Spirit 
does  not  draw  him?  If  you  consent,  for  consent  is  every- 
thing in  religion,  you  are  saved.  And  how  are  you  saved? 
Why  so  saved  that  if  the  solid  world  were  split  asunder 
and  the  graves  rent  open  and  the  universe  itself  convulsed 
— so  long  as  God's  throne  stands  unshaken,  and  so  long  as 
truth  is  truth  and  righteousness  is  righteousness,  you  are 
the  heir  of  an  eternal  life,  the  crowned  possessor  of  an 
everlasting  glory. 

The  doctrine  of  grace  brings  salvation.  It  tells  us  that 
since  we  can  do  nothing — nothing  whatever,  God  has  done 
all.  That  He  has  gone  into  the  question  of  our  sin  and 
our  necessity  and  sifted  it  to  the  bottom — that  He  has 
planned  largely  and  effectively  for  the  relief  of  sinners  and 
the  redress  of  law — that  He  has  righted  Himself  with 
Himself — that  He  has  satisfied  the  claims  of  justice — that 
He  has  satisfied  the  claims  of  moral  government — that  He 
has  satisfied  the  claims  of  human  conscience,  and  that  He 
has  so  settled  all  things  on  a  new,  impregnable,  immovable 
foundation  by  the  Blood  of  Christ,  the  smitten  Rock  of 
Ages,  that  those  who  trust  on  that  foundation  cannot  be 
confounded. 

My  unconverted  brother,  the  Gospel  is  of  such  a  nature 
that  when  it  says,  "The  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son, 
cleanseth  us  from  all  sin,"  if  you  consent  to  that  cleansing 
you  are  cleansed.  The  Gospel  is  of  such  a  nature  that 
when  it  says,  "He  brought  in  everlasting  righteousness," 
if  you  consent  to  that  righteousness  you  are  righteous.    It 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  163 

is  of  such  a  nature  that  when  it  says,  "He  hath  made  Him 
to  be  sin  for  us,"  if  you  consent  to  that  exchange,  to  that 
transfer,  Christ  becomes  your  substitute,  He  is  put  into 
your  place,  and  you  are  put  into  His  place  at  once — on  the 
spot. 

The  one  point  in  religion,  then,  in  consent.  Toward  that 
point  God's  Providence,  God's  Word,  God's  Spirit — all  the 
forces  of  His  moral  empire — urge,  incite,  and  draw  men. 
From  that  point  if  men  recalcitrate — if  they  say  "I  won't," 
they  are  lost.  At  that  point  if  men  consider — if  they  give 
God  credit  for  speaking  the  truth — if  they  do  Him  the  honor 
of  venturing  on  his  provision — if  they  believe  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ — in  one  word,  if  they  consent,  they  are  saved. 

The  one  question  of  our  moral  destiny  is  the  reception 
or  the  non-reception,  of  the  Blood  atonement ! 

Such  is  the  Doctrine  of  Grace.  Such  is  its  presentation. 
Now, 

III.,  and  lastly,  What  is  its  practical  effect? 
Some  say  it  is  too  simple.  It  cannot  save  because  there 
is  not  enough  to  it — a  man  has  nothing  to  do  but  believe. 
Our  reply  to  this  is — that  simplicity  is  the  ornament  of 
all  nobility,  and  the  special  grandeur  of  God.  The  Gospel 
is  simple,  just  as  Niagara  is  simple,  but  capable  of  bearing 
on  its  heaving  and  mysterious  tides  each  tiny  drop  that 
leaps  and  sparkles  there,  out,  out  into  the  wide  Ontario  of 
God's  grace,  and  out  again  into  the  measureless  Atlantic 
of  His  glory.  The  Gospel  is  simple  only  because  God  be- 
hind it  does  that  which  is  hard  and  leaves  to  man  that  which 
is  easy.  The  Gospel  is  simple  only  because  it  is  free  from 
circumlocution,  from  mystification,  and  from  what  we  stig- 
matize in  worldly  affairs  as  "red  tape." 

"Oh  how  unlike  the  complex  works  of  man 
Heaven's  easy,  artless,  unincumbered  plan  ! 
From  ostentation,  as  from  weakness,  free, 
It  stands  like  the  cerulean  arch  we  see, 
Majestic  in  its  own  simplicity; 
While,  writ  upon  its  portal,  from  afar 
Conspicuous  as  the  brightness  of  a  star, 
Legible  only  by  the  light  they  give. 
Stand  the  soul-quickening  words — 

Believe  and  Live!" 


164  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

But  it  is  said  that  this  doctrine  of  grace  destroys  good 
works — that  it  pulls  down  all  we  have  built  up,  and  makes 
it  of  no  avail  that  we  have  prayed  and  wept  and  labored. 

Our  reply  to  this  is  to  confirm  it — to  admit  that  the 
Gospel  razes  Shinar's  Tower  of  brick  and  slime  to  its 
foundation — that  it  opens  a  great  gulf  beneath  our  feet, 
into  which  it  flings  all  our  doings  and  all  our  experiences 
and  all  our  deservings,  while  it  cries  over  their  universal 
demolition  "Babylon  the  Great  is  fallen!  is  fallen!  is  fallen!" 
We  preach  as  the  special  and  distinctive  glory  of  the 
Gospel  the  obliteration  of  good  works  as,  in  any  way,  in 
any  sense,  essential,  confimatory,  supplementary,  the 
ground- work  of  our  standing  before  God.  We  affirm  with 
boldness  that  our  good  zvorks  cannot  strengthen  our  salva- 
tion nor  our  bad  works  weaken  it — that  not  in  one  whit 
does  our  salvation  depend  upon  what  we  commit  or  omit 
— upon  what  we  do  or  fail  to  do,  but  only  upon  this — the 
reception  of  Christ. 

"Of   all  that  wisdom  teaches  this  the  drift, 
That  man  is  dead  in  sin,  and  life's  a  gift." 

But  some  say  the  Doctrine  of  Grace  leads  to  unholincss. 
No  !  there  we  stop — that  we  deny ! 

The  Doctrine  of  Grace  is  not  built  on  good  works,  be- 
cause it  creates  them.  A  man  without  the  indwelling  Holy 
Ghost  is  dead,  but  where  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  and  makes 
him  alive,  he  is  alive.  How  ?  By  the  Holy  Ghost.  In 
what  direction?  Alive  unto  God.  For  the  grace  of  God 
hath  appeared  unto  all  men,  teaching  us  that  denying  un- 
godliness and  worldly  lusts,  we  should  live  soberly,  right- 
eously and  godly  in  this  present  world. 

The  Doctrine  of  Grace  cannot  make  men  unholy — for 

1.  It  has  for  its  object,  straight  through,  the  glory  of 
God — but  unholiness  does  not  glorify  Him. 

2.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  has  for  its  object  to  magnify 
the  law  and  to  teach  us  to  magnify  it — but  unholiness  does 
not  magnify  the  law. 

3.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  has  for  its  object  to  make  u? 
new  creatures ;  but  if  we  are  new  creatures  we  are  different 
from  what  we  were  before — if  therefore  we  were  before 
unholy,  now  we  become  holy. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  165 

4.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  teaches  us  to  do  all  things  by 
God's  Spirit,  but  God's  Spirit  is  a  holy  Spirit ;  what  we  do 
therefore  must  be  holy. 

5.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  suspends  everything  on  faith, 
but  faith  works  by  love  and  purifies  the  heart,  and  we  are 
sanctified  by  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 

6.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  brings  us  to  a  perfect  rest  in 
God,  but  then  it  is  a  Sabbath  rest — the  eternal  Sabbath 
begun — in  which  there  shall  be  nothing  unholy. 

7.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  gives  us  Christ,  not  only  as 
our  Priest  to  sacrifice  for  us,  but  our  Prophet  to  teach  us 
and  our  King  to  rule  us.  We  must  therefore  "beware  of 
Him  and  obey  His  voice,  for  God's  name  is  in  Him." 

8.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  bestows  everything,  and  there- 
fore awakens  our  gratitude.  "We  thus  judge  that  if  one 
died  for  all,  then  all  died,  and  that  He  died  for  all  that  we 
who  live  should  not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves  but 
unto  Him  who  died  for  them  and  rose  again." 

9.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace,  so  far  from  abolishing  God's 
law,  re-enacts  it.  It  gathers  up  the  Tables  broken  on  Sinai 
in  order  to  re-cement  them  and  preserve  them  in  the  true 
and  living  Ark,  Christ  Jesus,  who  Himself  also  has  left  us 
an  example  that  we  should  follow  His  steps.  Upon  no  men 
— upon  no  dispensation  have  the  Ten  Commandments  been 
so  binding  as  they  are  upon  us  Christians  in  this  dispensa- 
tion of  grace. 

10.  The  Doctrine  of  Grace  is  not  only  a  precept,  it  is  a 
power.  "Our  Gospel  came  unto  you,"  says  the  Apostle, 
"not  in  word  only,  but  in  power  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  Holy  Ghost  is  the  author  of  all  that  is  in  the  saved 
man.  Whatever  is  not  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not  of  the 
New  "I," — it  must  therefore  be  cast  out,  crucified,  reckoned 
dead. 

On  the  other  hand — when  we  say  the  Holy  Ghost  is  in 
us — what  does  that  mean?  It  means  that  God  is  in  us — 
working  through  us — working  on  and  out. 

A  strawberry  runner  is  shot  from  the  parent  stem,  for 
what  purpose?  That  it  may  take  root,  become  a  new  plant 
and  bring  forth  fruit.    In  like  manner  I  am  shot  forth  out 


1 66  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

of  God,  by  the  infusion  of  a  divine  nature,  that  I  in  turn 
rooted  and  grounded  in  Christ,  may  bring  forth  fruit  unto 
God. 

If  any  man  say  otherwise — if  he  say,  "Let  us  therefore 
continue  in  sin  that  grace  may  abound" — our  reply  is  that 
of  the  Apostle — echoed  by  the  consenting  voices  of  re- 
deemed man  in  all  ages — "whose  damnation  is  just !" 

Now,  unto  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son  and  God  the 
Holy  Ghost  be  glory  evermore.     Amen. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  167 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ELECTION  TRUE. 

Acts  xiii  48. 
"As  many  as  were  ordained  to  eternal  life,  believed." 

The  reason  why  any  one  believes  in  Election  is,  that  he 
finds  it  in  the  Bible.  No  man  could  ever  imagine  such  a 
doctrine — for  it  is,  in  itself,  contrary  to  the  thinkings  and 
the  wishes  of  the  human  heart.  Every  one,  at  first,  opposes 
the  doctrine,  and  it  is  only  after  many  struggles,  under  the 
working  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  that  we  are  made  to  receive 
it.  A  perfect  acquiescence  in  this  doctrine — an  absolute 
lying  still,  in  adoring  wonder,  at  the  footstool  of  God's 
sovereignty,  is  the  last  attainment  of  the  sanctified  soul  in 
this  life — as  it  is  the  beginning  of  heaven. 

The  reason  why  any  one  believes  in  Election  is  just  this, 
and  only  this — that  God  has  made  it  known.  Had  the  Bible 
been  a  counterfeit  it  never  could  have  contained  the  Doc- 
trine of  Election,  for  men  are  too  averse  to  such  a  thought 
to  give  it  expression  much  more  to  give  it  prominence. 

The  Bible  not  only  teaches  the  doctrine,  but  makes  it 
prominent — so  prominent  that  you  can  only  get  rid  of  Elec- 
tion by  getting  rid  of  the  Bible.  It  is  the  Bible  part  that 
is  the  great  difficulty.  It  is  not  what  believers  say,  nor  what 
a  sound  philosophy  teaches,  but  it  is  what  the  Scriptures  say, 
that  confronts  us.  No  propositions  ever  laid  down  by  the 
pulpit  are  so  difficult  to  receive  as  is  the  inspired  language 
itself.  This  will  explain  the  great  dislike  of  certain  passages 
of  Scripture  which  allude  to  this  topic.  Men  pass  them  by — 
they  turn  from  them — they  are  angry  if  they  hear  them 
quoted  even  without  a  comment.  They  do  their  best  to 
twist  them  from  their  plain  sense — to  explain  away  their 
meaning  and  yet,  after  all  their  explanations,  they  do  not 
like  to  hear  them  or  to  read  them.  They  feel  that  their  one- 
sided and  disingenuous  dealings  cannot  bear  the  light  of 
God. 

The  Bible  makes  Election  prominent.  It  puts  Election 
basal  to  the  entire  scheme  of  grace.  It  makes  it  the  Supreme 
law — the  underlying  principle  of  the  Gospel — that,  in  har- 


168  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

mony  with  which,  all  things  else  have  their  being  and  that 
which  if  it  should  fail,  the  universe  would  be  a  ruin. 

If  this  be  so — if  the  Doctrine  of  Election  is  in  the  Bible, 
then  we  shall  have,  either  to  give  up  the  Bible,  or  receive  the 
Doctrine. 

If  the  Doctrine  is  in  the  Bible,  then,  since  we  do  not  in- 
tend to  give  up  the  Bible,  we  must  receive  it. 

Election  means  choice  and  "to  elect"  means  to  choose, 
and  the  Doctrine  of  Election  is  the  absolute  choice  of  those 
who  are  to  be  saved,  from  eternity. 

Bear  with  me  then  I  pray  you  while  we  consider. 

I.  The  Doctrine  of  Election  as  it  runs  through  the  Bible. 

II.  The  Doctrine  in  this  particular  text. 

III.  The  Doctrine  as  held  by  the  Church. 

IV.  The  Meaning  of  the  Doctrine. 

V.  Its  practical  Value,  and 

I.  The  Doctrine  of  Election  as  it  runs  through  the  Bible. 

I  prefer  to  begin  with  a  whole  volley  of  texts, — i.  e..  to 
avalanche  you  with  an  irresistible  pressure  of  testimonies  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and,  afterward,  to  close  to  a  more  logical 
and  special  presentation  of  my  theme. 

If  then  we  turn  to  the  Old  Testament  we  shall  read  in 
Deut.  y-.y,  "The  Lord  thy  God  hath  chosen  thee  to  be  a 
special  people  unto  Himself.  The  Lord  did  not  set  His  love 
upon  you,  nor  choose  you  because  ye  were  more  in  number 
than  any  people,  for  ye  were  the  fewest  of  all  people,  but 
because  the  Lord  loved  you."  In  Neh.  9:7  we  go  back  of 
this,  "Thou  art  the  Lord,  the  God,  who  didst  choose  Abram 
and  gavest  him  the  name  Abraham."  In  I  Chron.  28:4,  we 
have  David — "The  Lord  God  of  Israel  chose  me."  In  I 
Chron.  29:1,  he  says,  "Solomon  my  son  whom  God  hath 
chosen."  In  the  Psalms  he  enlarges  on  this — "He  chose 
David  also  His  servant."  "I  have  made  a  covenant  with 
My  chosen."  "Ye  children  of  Jacob  His  chosen."  "Aaron 
whom  He  had  chosen."  "He  brought  forth  His  chosen." 
"That  I  may  see  the  good  of  Thy  chosen."  Pass  from  the 
Psalms  to  Isaiah  and  we  read — "Thou  Israel  art  my  ser- 
vant, Jacob  whom  I  have  chosen.     I  have  chosen  thee  and 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   FAITH.  169 

not  cast  thee  away."  "Ye  are  my  witnesses  and  my  servant 
whom  I  have  chosen."  "I  have  refined  thee  but  not  with 
silver ;  I  have  chosen  thee  in  the  furnace  of  affliction." 
"Behold  My  elect  in  whom  My  soul  delighteth."  "Mine 
elect  shall  long  enjoy  the  work  of  their  hands." 

From  the  Old  Testament  let  us  pass  to  the  Epistles  of  the 
New  Testament,  where  we  shall  expect  to  find  a  more  direct 
teaching.  Take  Romans,  "Whom  He  did  predestinate  them 
He  also  called."  "Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of 
God's  elect."  "The  children  being  not  yet  born  neither  hav- 
ing done  any  good  or  evil — that  the  purpose  of  God  accord- 
ing to  election  might  stand,  it  was  said  to  her,  the  elder  shall 
serve  the  younger."  "For  He  saith  to  Moses,  I  will  have 
mercy  on  whom  I  will  have  mercy — so  then  it  is  not  of  him 
that  willeth  nor  of  him  that  runneth  but  of  God  that  showeth 
mercy."  "There  remaineth  therefore  a  remnant  according 
to  the  election  of  grace."  "The  election  hath  obtained  it 
and  the  rest  were  blinded." 

I  Corinthians :  "God  hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the 
world  and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the  world, 
and  base  things  of  the  world  and  things  which  are  despised 
hath  God  chosen,  yea  and  the  things  that  are  not,  to  bring 
to  nought  the  things  that  are." 

Ephesians :  "According  as  He  hath  chosen  us  in  Him 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world — having  predestinated  us 
into  the  adoption  of  children  by  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  we 
also  have  obtained  an  inheritance  being  predestinated  accord- 
ing to  the  purpose  of  Him  who  worketh  all  things  after  the 
counsel  of  His  own  will." 

Philippians :  "To  you  it  is  given  on  the  behalf  of  Christ 
to  believe."  "Whose  names  are  written  in  the  Book  of 
Life." 

Colossians:  "Put  on  as  the  elect  of  God,  bowels  of  mer- 
cies." 

I  Thess. :  "God  hath  not  appointed  us  to  wrath  but  to 
obtain  salvation." 

II  Thess. :  "God  hath  from  the  beginning  chosen  you  to 
salvation  through  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and  belief  of 
the  truth." 


170  THE   DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

Timothy :  "Who  hath  saved  us  and  called  us  with  an  holy 
calling,  not  according  to  our  works  but  according  to  His 
own  purpose  and  grace  which  was  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus 
before  the  world  began." 

Titus :  "According  to  the  faith  of  God's  elect." 

James:  "Of  His  own  will  begat  He  us." 

I  Peter :  "Elect  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God." 
"The  Church  elected  together  with  you  saluteth  you." 

John :  "The  elder  unto  the  elect  lady.  The  children  of 
thine  elect  sister  greet  thee." 

Jude :  "Ungodly  men  who  were  before  of  old  ordained 
to  this  condemnation." 

Revelation :  "None  shall  enter  but  they  which  are  written 
in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  life — in  the  Book  of  the  life  of  the 
Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." 

I  have  reserved  however  as  the  strongest  class  of  texts  the 
words  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Gospels. 

"I  speak  not  of  you  all,  I  know  whom  I  have  chosen."  "Ye 
have  not  chosen  Me  but  I  have  chosen  you."  "I  have 
chosen  you  out  of  the  world."  "Many  are  called  but  few 
are  chosen."  "All  that  the  Father  giveth  Me  shall  come  to 
Me."  "No  man  can  come  to  Me  except  the  Father  which 
hath  sent  Me  draw  Him."  "As  thou  hast  given  Him  power 
over  all  flesh  that  He  might  give  Eternal  life  to  as  many 
as  Thou  hast  given  Him."  "Those  that  Thou  gavest  Me  I 
have  kept."  "I  pray  for  them — I  pray  not  for  the  world 
but  for  them  which  Thou  hast  given  Me."  "I  thank  Thee 
Oh  Father — Lord  of  heaven  and  Eearth — that  Thou  hast 
hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent  and  hast  revealed 
them  unto  babes.  Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good 
in  Thy  sight." 

From  the  general  survey  and  scope  of  the  Scriptures  as 
gleaned  from  assertions  of  which  these  are  specimens,  we 
come  now, 

II.  To  the  Doctrine  of  Election  as  taught  in  the  text. 
"As  many  as  were  ordained  to  eternal  life  believed."  These 
words  occur  in  the  Book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles — the 
only  part  of  the  Scripture  from  which  I  have  not  quoted — 
and  they  are  as  strong  and  full  a  statement  of  the  doctrine 
as  one  could  possibly  require. 

"But  do  the  words  behind  these  teach  the  doctrine  of 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  171 

Election? — Do  the  Greek  words  teach  it?"  They  most  cer- 
tainly do.  Nothing  could  be  more  shallow  or  puerile  than 
the  evasions  which  have  been  resorted  to  to  disprove  this. 
300  years  ago,  the  most  learned  and  pious  men  of  the  Refor- 
mation translated  the  Greek  as  they  found  it,  and — for  300 
years,  against  all  criticism,  this  translation  stands — even  in 
the  Revised  New  Testament,  it  stands. 

The  Arminians  and  liberals  insist  that  the  Greek  word 
means  "disposed" — as  many  as  felt  disposed  to  have  eternal 
life  believed.  Of  course  they  believed  if  they  felt  disposed 
to  believe.  There  is  nothing  very  instructive  in  that — the 
question  is  "who  disposed  them?" 

The  Greek  word  is  passive — they  were  disposed — i.  e. 
Some  one  disposed  them.  I  studied  Greek  six  years  and  then 
taught  it  three,  in  one  of  our  first  Seminaries,  and  have 
been  keeping  up  with  the  language  ever  since,  and  I  simply 
know  that  the  word  reTay/xavot  involves  an  Outside  Agent, 
in  the  arrangement.  They  did  not  dispose  themselves — they 
iverc  disposed — in  other  words:  God  did  it — i.  e.,  He  or- 
dained them. 

Dr.  Alexander,  of  Princeton,  says :  "The  violent  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  eliminate  the  doctrine  of  election, 
or  predestination  from  this  verse,  by  rendering  the  verb, 
"disposed,"  or,  by  violent  constructions  such  as  that  of 
Socinus — "as  many  as  believed,  were  ordained,"  can  never 
change  the  simple  fact  that  wherever  the  word  occurs  else- 
where in  the  New  Testament,  it  invariably  expresses  the 
action  of  an  outside  person  upon  the  subject." 

"The  word  reray/uevot  "  says  Calvin,  "means  chosen  by 
the  free  adoption  of  God.  The  mass  refused  but  there  was 
an  election.  Luke  does  not  say  they  were  ordained  to  faith, 
but  'unto  life,'  and  that  shows  that  faith  depends  on  God's 
election.  For,  if  two  hear  the  doctrine  together,  and  one  is 
willing  to  be  taught,  while  the  other  continues  obstinate, 
this  is  not  because  the  two  differ  by  nature  but  because 
God  makes  them  to  differ,  softening  the  mind  and  heart  of 
the  one  by  His  will." 

Spurgeon  says:  "Attempts  have  been  made  to  prove  that 
these  words  do  not  teach  predestination,  but  these  attempts 
so  clearly  do  violence  to  language  that  I  shall  not  waste  time 
in  answering  them.    I  read :  'As  many  as  were  ordained  to 


172  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

eternal  life  believed'  and  I  shall  not  twist  the  text  but  shall 
glorify  the  grace  of  God  by  ascribing  to  that  grace  the  faith 
of  every  man.  Is  it  not  God  who  gives  the  disposition  to  be- 
lieve? If  men  are  disposed  to  have  eternal  life,  does  not 
He — in  every  case — dispose  them?  Is  it  wrong  for  God  to 
give  grace?  If  it  be  right  for  Him  to  give  it — is  it  wrong 
for  Him  to  purpose  to  give  it?  Would  you  have  Him  give 
it  by  accident?  If  it  is  right  for  Him  to  purpose  to  give 
grace  to-day,  it  was  right  for  Him  to  purpose  it  before  to- 
day— and,  since  He  changes  not — from  eternity." 

But  now  see, 

III.  With  this  Doctrine  of  the  text  agree  all  the  Evan- 
gelical Confessions  in  the  world.  Take  for  instance  the  old- 
est of  them' — the  Waldensian  Confession: 

"God  saves  from  corruption  and  damnation  those  whom 
He  has  chosen  from  the  foundations  of  the  world,  not  for 
any  disposition,  faith  or  holiness  He  foresaw  in  them,  but 
of  His  mere  mercy  in  Christ  Jesus,  His  Son,  passing  by  all 
the  rest  according  to  the  irreprehensible  reason  of  His  own 
free  will  and  justice." 

Take  the  Third  Article  of  the  Baptist  Confession :  "By 
the  decree  of  God,  for  the  manifestation  of  His  glory  some 
men  and  angels  are  predestinated  or  preordained  to  eternal 
life  through  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  praise  of  His  glorious 
grace;  others  being  left  to  act  in  their  sin  to  their  just  con- 
demnation." 

Take  the  17th  Article  of  the  Church  of  England — the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  "Predestination  to  life  is  the 
everlasting  purpose  of  God  whereby  (before  the  founda- 
tions of  the  world  were  laid)  He  hath  continually  decreed 
by  His  counsel,  secret  to  us,  to  deliver  from  curse  and 
damnation,  those  whom  He  hath  chosen  in  Christ,  out  of 
mankind,  and  to  bring  them,  by  Christ  to  everlasting  sal- 
vation, as  vessels  made  to  honor." 

The  Westminister  or  Presbyterian  Confession  says:  "By 
the  decree  of  God  for  the  manifestation  of  His  glory,  some 
men  and  angels  are  predestinated  to  everlasting  life — the 
number  of  these  is  unchangeable." 

Our  own  Reformed  Church  puts  it  in  this  way:  "We 
believe  that  all  the  posterity  of  Adam,  being  fallen  into  per- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  173 

dition  and  ruin  by  the  sin  of  our  first  parents,  God,  then, 
did  manifest  Himself  such  as  He  is — that  is  to  say,  MERCI- 
FUL and  JUST, — Merciful  since  He  delivers  and  preserves 
from  this  perdition  all  whom  He,  of  mere  goodness,  hath 
elected  in  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord,  without  respect  to  their 
works, — Just  in  leaving  others  in  the  fall  and  perdition 
wherein  they  have  involved  themselves." 

Thus — from  the  Scope  of  the  Scriptures — from  the 
Teaching  of  the  Text  and  from  the  Confessions  of  the 
Evangelical  Church  throughout  the  world,  the  Doctrine  has 
been  established  1 — that  brings  us 

IV.  To  the  Meaning  of  the  doctrine  which,  in  the  very 
treatment  of  the  subject,  so  far,  has  been  largely  forestalled, 
and 

1.  It  means  that  God's  choice  is  absolute, — that  it  is  a 
gratuitous  election  and  that  it  depends  on  nothing  outside  of 
God  Himself.  He  chose  because  He  chose  to  choose — from 
no  merit  or  attraction  in  the  creature  and  from  no  foreseen 
merit  or  attraction  to  be  in  the  creature,  but  simply  out  of 
the  spontaneous  goodness  of  His  own  volition  which,  from 
the  mass  of  mankind — all  equally  guilty  and  all  equally  de- 
serving of  death,  selected  some — a  multitude  whom  no  man 
can  number,  to  live. 

Justice  demanded  that  all  should  die,  but  justice  cannot 
demand  that,  if  some  shall  be  saved,  all  must  be.  That  is 
for  God  to  decide.  It  rests  with  Him  to  save  all,  or  none,  or 
few.  Those  not  elected  are  simply  left  to  themselves  and  to 
their  sins,  and  to  the  just  consequences  of  their  sins. 

But  some  reply :  "God  chooses  people  because  they  are 
good — because  of  sundry  works  which  they  have  done." 
Who  then  is  good?  "There  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no 
not  one." — and  what  works  are  thev  on  the  account  of  which 
God  is  obliged  to  choose  men  ?  Not  the  works  of  the  law, 
for.  "by  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified."  If 
men  cannot  be  justified  by  the  works  of  the  law,  they  cannot 
be  elected  bv  them.  Besides  the  Scripture  shuts  off  the  cavil 
by  saving:  "Not  by  works  of  righteousness  which  we  have 
done  but  according  to  His  mercy  He  saved  us" — "Not  ac- 
cording to  our  works  but  according  to  His  own  purpose  and 
grace  which  was  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus  before  the  world 
began."    If  it  was  given  us,  we  did  not  earn  it  nor  can  we. 


174  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"But,"  says  another,  "God  elects  men  on  the  foresight  of 
their  faith."  But  God  gives  faith,  therefore  He  could  not 
have  elected  men  on  the  ground  of  any  faith  which  he  fore- 
saw. If,  among  a  score  of  beggars,  I  determine  to  give  one 
of  them  a  .dime,  who  will  say  that  I  determined  to  give  it, 
because  I  foresaw  he  would  have  the  dime  anyhow  ?  What 
nonsense.  The  gift  of  the  dime  is  free — the  choice  is  free, 
and  so  faith,  the  gift  of  God,  is  the  result  not  the  ground 
of  election. 

Besides :  To  say  that  God  elected  those  who  He  foresaw 
would  believe  is  to  deny  election.  God  elected  those  He 
foresaw  would  believe  and  who  were  they?  None, — abso- 
lutly  none.  He  foresaw  that  none  would  believe,  not  one. 
Did  He?  Then  because  He  foresaw  this  He  had  to  elect, 
otherwise  not  one  would  have  believed  at  all. 

2.  The  Doctrine  means  that  God's  choice  is  unchangeable. 
It  is  not  founded  on  anything  else.  It  is  before  everything 
else.  It  is  before  His  foreknowledge.  He  does  not  decree 
because  He  foreknows,  but  He  foreknows  because  He  has 
fixed  it.  If  not  He  only  guesses.  If  He  foreknows  it,  He 
does  not  guess — it  is  certain.  But  if  certain,  then  it  is  fixed 
— then  He  fixed  it. 

3.  Election  is  eternal.  "God  hath,  from  the  beginning, 
chosen  you."  Can  any  man  say,  when  was  that  beginning? 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word," — from  the  beginning  God 
hath  chosen.  Then,  if  His  choice  has  been  from  eternity,  it 
will  last  to  eternity.  There  is  the  unassailable  comfort  of 
the  people  of  God.  Nothing  can  survive  to  eternity  but 
what  came  from  eternity,  and  what  has  so  come.  will.  "I 
have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting  love,  therefore  with 
loving  kindness,  have  I  drawn  thee — I  will  never  leave  thee 
nor  forsake." 

4.  The  Doctrine  of  Election  is  personal.  Here  again  we 
meet  the  evasion  that  the  election  is  of  Nations — as  Israel — 
and  not  of  men.  But  how  miserable  the  shift  is  will  appear 
when  we  remember  that  nations  are  made  up  of  men — that 
they  are  but  a  collection  of  units.  If  God  chose  the  Jews, 
then  He  chose  this  Jew  and  that  Jew — as  Abram  and  Moses 
and  David,  and  what  is  this  but  personal  election? 

Besides :  if  it  were  not  just  to  choose  a  person  and  rule  in 
favor  of  that  person,  rather  than  another,  how  can  it  be 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE.  175 

just  to  choose  a  nation  and  rule  in  favor  of  that  nation,  and 
set  it  up  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  nations?  On  such  a 
line  of-  special  pleading,  the  choice  of  a  whole  nation,  being 
the  more  tremendous  choice  becomes  the  more  tremendous 
crime.  Election  then  is  personal,  God  hath  chosen  us  in 
Christ — "Us"  means  believers  and  believers  singly — "He 
calleth  His  own  sheep  by  name."  Each  name  is  written  on 
the  breast  plate  of  the  Great  High  Priest  our  Surety  and 
our  Substitute  and  therefore  may  we  say  and  sing: 

"Sons  we  are  by  God's  Election, 

Who  on  Jesus  Christ  believe, 
By  eternal  destination, 

Sovereign  grace  we  now  receive, 
Lord  Thy  mercy, 
Doth  both  grace  and  glory  give !" 

5.  Election  is  a  choice  to  holiness.  "God  hath  from  the 
beginning  chosen  you  unto  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and 
belief  of  the  truth.'' 

The  man  who  says  he  is  elected,  and  leads  a  life  of  sin  is 
a  self-contradiction.  God  chooses  the  unholy,  but  they  do 
not  remain  unholy.  He  justifies  the  ungodly,  but  they  do 
not  remain  ungodly. 

"And  belief  of  the  truth."  One  mark  of  our  election  is 
our  willingness  to  submit  our  reason  to  the  statements  of  the 
Word  of  God.  It  is  not  our  Christian  consciousness  which 
must  guide  us.  Christian  consciousness  must  be  lifted  to 
the  plane  of  scripture.  That  "Thus  saith  the  Lord"  rules 
with  us,  is  an  evidence  of  our  election.  There  are  only  two 
religions  in  the  world — one  built  on  election  and  the  other 
on  free-will.  If  I  adopt  the  one  religion,  I  break  down  and 
submit  to  God  and  to  the  Bible.  If  not,  I  erect  my  Christian 
consciousness — that  is  the  modern  phrase, — "my  Christian 
consciousness"  against  them  and  it  will  betray  me. 

We  come  now 

V. — To  the  Value  of  the  Doctrine, — of  what  use  is  it  in  a 
practical  way?  If  I  am  elected  to  salvation  irrespective  of 
works  then  I  am  elected  on  some  other  ground — then  I  am 
shut  up  to  Christ  only. 

If  I  have  had  some  hand  in  making  myself  a  Christian,  T 
shall  always  be  looking  at  the  progress  I  make.     I  shall, 


176  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

always,  more  or  less,  be  resting  on  this  or  that  evidence, — on 
this,  or  that  thing  or  hoped  for  thing,  in  me  or  about  me. 
But,  when  I  thoroughly  grasp  the  doctrine  of  election — I  see 
that  I  am  saved  only  as  a  sinner,  for  the  sake  of  the  merits 
of  Christ, — I  see  that  a  naked  faith  saves  me — a  faith  irre- 
spective of  works  although  it  produces  them.  How  often 
do  we  lean  upon  something  else  besides  Christ — on  some 
other  might  or  strength  than  that  which  is  from  on  high. 
All  this  is  taken  away  when  we  believe  in  election.  We 
are  shut  up  to  God  and  faith  only. 

Another  use  of  election  is  that  it,  as  nothing  else,  humbles 
us.  The  other  doctrine — that  of  free-will  makes  us  self- 
conscious,  exclusive,  self-righteous,  and  proud.  We  become 
Pharisees.  We  make  ourselves  to  differ.  We  look  down  on 
others  who  are  less  strict  and  punctilious.  "God,  I  thank 
thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men  are,  or  even  as  this  Publican" 
becomes  our  litany. 

But,  when  we  are  thoroughly  broken — when  we  see  we  are 
sinners,  and — at  our  best,  nothing  but  sinners, — when  we 
realize  that  we  belong  to  a  fallen  race — ourselves  as  weak 
before  temptation  and  as  liable  to  fall  as  any,  and  that  it  is 
God  alone  who  makes  us  to  differ,  then  we  grow  humble  and 
become  more  pitiful  and  more  compassionate,  and  our  prayer 
is — "God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner." 

But  then  again :  the  Doctrine  of  Election  is  ennobling.  It 
makes  heroic  men.  Even  the  men  who,  at  the  present,  are 
most  frantic  for  a  change  in  the  creed  are  proud  of  the 
fathers  who  made  it  and  held  it.  What  men  they  were — "of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy."  And  what  made  them 
such  men  ?  What  transformed  them  from  common  to  un- 
common clay?  What  but  the  infusion  of  a  Blood-royal? 
Their  principles — their  religion,  the  marrow  and  the  soul  of 
which  was  the  electing  love  of  God. 

There  is  a  nobility  about  the  Calvinist  which  attaches  to 
no  other  man.  His  doctrine  mav  seem  stern  in  some  aspects 
— stern  as  Moses,  Elijah  and  Paul — but  it  alone  can  make 
s*uch  men.  Arminianism  never  yet  produced  a  martyr.  No 
man  ever  yet  died  for  the  sake  of  free-will.  In  front  of  the 
fire  he  falls  from  grace,  to  resume  it  again  when  the  fire  is 
extinguished.  As  it  was  said  of  one  of  the  leaders  in  the 
General  Assembly  the  other  day.     "He  was  an  iron-clad 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  177 

Presbyterian  at  the  beginning  of  the  week  but  at  the  end 
he  was  no  longer  a  son  of  thunder."  Had  he  been  thorough, 
he  would  have  been  the  same  at  the  end  of  the  week  that  he 
was  at  the  beginning. 

Few  men,  when  popular  sentiment  has  lifted  it,  can  dare 
to  stand  the  storm.  Their  principles  give  way  because  they 
are  not  deep  enough — genuine.  They  talk  but  when  the 
crisis  comes,  they  are  lacking.  The  believer  in  the  good  old 
Doctrine  of  Predestination  has  back-bone.  You  cannot 
swerve  him,  though  you  grind  him  to  powder. 

This  is  the  doctrine  which  has  made  nations  great  and 
men  and  civilizations  splendid.  It  is  the  doctrine  which  in 
every  age — has  communicated  the  highest  upward  impulse 
to  human  life,  affairs,  and  aspiration. 

I  am  led  to  speak  the  more  boldly,  this  morning,  because 
of  the  religious  change  which  is  coming  over  this  nation  and 
over  our  age. 

Presbyterian  means  Predestination.  The  whole  world 
knows  that.  And  the  whole  world  knows  that  there  is  no 
ground  for  the  simple  service  and  the  simple  government  of 
the  Church  to  which  we  belong,  save  the  ground  of  election, 
which  makes  our  creed  differ,  and  gives  us  our  theology  and 
life.  The  reason  for  our  existence  is  the  doctrine  which  I 
have  defended  to-day-  To  relinquish  that  doctrine  is  to 
drift  in  one  of  two  directions — toward  ritualism  on  the  one 
side  or  rationalism  on  the  other. 

The  last  week  has  witnessed  a  movement  on  the  part  of  a 
great  denomination  which  is  ominous  for  the  future.  The 
new  creed,  or,  as  it  is  called — "A  Statement  of  the  Reformed 
Faith"* — which  has  been  adopted  in  New  York,  is  a  com- 
promise. It  is  a  drawbridge  between  Calvinism  and 
Arminianism.  It  can  be  pulled  up  with  some  very  strenuous 
straining,  perhaps,  by  the  orthodox — but  it  can  be  easily  let 
down  by  the  liberals,  and  it  will  be.  On  the  whole,  it  gives 
the  doctrine  away. 

But  let  me  not  close  this  sermon  without  a  practical  appeal 
to  those  who  have  sometimes  made  this  doctrine  an  objec- 
tion to  their  immediate  coming  to  Christ. 

To  any  such  I  would  say:  What  claim  have  you,  my 
Brother — a  fallen  creature — upon  any  choice  of  God  at  all? 


*Adopted  by  the  Assembly  of  1902. 


178  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Do  not  your  sins  deserve  damnation?  Suppose  He  leaves 
you,  as  you  are,  to  be  lost,  does  He  do  you  any  injustice? 
Do  you  wish  to  be  saved  ?  Then  you  may  be — then  you  are 
elected — your  very  willingness  and  your  wish  show  that 
God  has  been  working  upon  you  and  working  in  love.  If 
you  long  for  religion,  then  God  has  chosen  you  to  it.  If  you 
desire  it  He  has  chosen  you  to  it.  And,  if  you  do  not  desire 
it,  and  will  not  have  it,  and  resolutely  put  the  offer  of 
salvation  in  Christ  away  from  you,  why  should  you  blame 
God  if  He  does  not  force  upon  you  to  have  what  you  do  not 
want,  and  what  you  will  not  have,  and  what  you  do  not 
value  ? 

You  are  not  a  Universalist.  You  do  not  believe  that  all 
mankind  will  be  saved,  and  if  not,  if  there  be  an  allotted 
number,  why  should  you  not  be  of  that  number?  You  will 
be  if  you  do  not  refuse.  You  will  be  if  you  accept.  You 
will  be  if  you  make  your  calling  and  election  sure,  if  you 
say:  "I  am  called,  then  I  will  come."  "I  trust,  then  I  am 
elected."  Both  things  will  be  true  if  you  do.  Then  you 
will  owe  salvation  to  grace — to  God's  being  beforehand  with 
you,  and  moving  on  you — as,  if  not, — if  you  refuse,  you  will 
owe  your  destruction  to  your  own  wilfulness. 

You  are  here  in  God's  house.  His  Spirit  touches  you, 
moves  on  you  now — Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
be  saved. 

If  you  do,  you  shall  see  that  God's  will  was  first — that 
you  zvould  never  have  willed  had  not  God  made  you  willing 
■ — that  He  must  have  chosen  you,  for,  left  to  yourself,  you 
never  would  have  chosen  Him. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  179 

A  POPULAR  TALK 

on 

ELECTION  AND  THE  OBJECTIONS 

WHICH    ARE   OFTEN    BROUGHT   AGAINST   IT. 

The  question  of  Election  or  no  election  is  the  question  of 
the  Bible  on  the  one  side  and  the  human  reason  on  the  other. 

The  moment  you  begin  to  speak  to  men  in  Christian  lands 
upon  the  subject  of  religion  that  moment  carnal  reason  starts 
in  them  and  they  begin  to  tell  you  zvhat  they  think  and  how 
it  seems  to.  them. 

Of  course,  opinions  differ.  One  man  believes  if  he  is  only 
moral,  and  does  not  drink  or  swear  and  is  not  guilty  of  any 
open  or  secret  uncleanness,  and  if  he  is  decently  kind  to  his 
neighbors  and  pays  his  just  debts,  that  is  enough  for  him. 
God  will  receive  him  when  he  hands  his  checks  in  at  the 

?ate- 

Another  man's  opinion  is  that  something  more  than  this 

is  needed.     He  thinks  the  Bible  ought  to  come  in,  and  that 

there  ought  to  be  some  doctrine,  as  that  God  is  a  Trinity 

and  that  Christ  is  God's  Son,  so  that  one  who  denies  the 

Trinity  and  denies  the  atonement  cannot  be  saved. 

This  last  man  really  gives  up  the  whole  argument;  for  if 
you  bring  in  the  Bible  at  all,  you  cannot  pick  and  choose. 
You  cannot  take  Heaven  and  leave  out  Hell.  You  cannot 
take  Christ  and  believe  in  the  salvation  of  men  without  any 
Christ.  You  cannot  take  the  New-Birth  as  a  fact  and  then 
deny  sovereign  Election. 

If  you  take  the  Bible  at  all,  you  have  got  to  take  it  as  the 
Word  of  God.  If  it  is  God's  Word,  then,  when  He  speaks 
that  ends  it. 

If  you  take  the  Bible  as  God's  Word,  you  must  expect 
that  Bible  to  have  in  it  some  things  that  are  dark  to  you. 
Mystery  is  dark  and  God  is  mysterious.  "Lo,  these  are 
parts  of  His  ways,  but  how  little  a  portion  is  heard  of 
Him."    (Job  xxvi:i4.)     "How  unsearchable  are  His  judg- 


i8o  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

ments   and   His   ways   past   finding  out!"     (Rom.   xi:33.) 
"Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness."  (I.  Tim.  iii:i6.) 

If  the  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God,  it  will  tell  us  things 
that  are  strange  to  us,  things  that  reason  did  not  know  and 
could  not  guess.  What  were  the  use  of  God's  giving  down 
from  Heaven  a  revelation  of  things  which  we  already  know  ? 

If  the  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God,  not  only  will  it  contain 
things  strange,  but  contradictory  to  nature.  "For  My 
thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts ;  neither  are  your  ways  My 
ways,  saith  the  Lord.  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way  and 
the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts.  For  as  the  heavens  are 
higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  My  ways  higher  than  your 
ways  and  My  thoughts  than  your  thoughts."  (Isa.  lv  :y,  8, 
9.)  "The  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  neither  can  he  know  them,  but  God  hath  revealed 
them  unto  us  by  His  Spirit.    (I.  Cor.  ii:io-i4.) 

Now  Election  is  one  of  these  things  strange  and  con- 
tradictory to  nature,  which  the  Bible  teaches  and  which 
we  are  bound  to  receive.  A  doctrine  which  we  reject  at 
our  peril. 

I  stand  here  to-night  and  preach  the  Word  of  God.  A 
man  steps  up  to  this  desk  and  he  says :  "This  thing,  that 
thing  and  the  other  thing  which  you  assert,  does  not  seem 
true  to  me." 

I  answer :  "I  do  not  assert  it.  I  am  not  preaching  my 
doctrine.  What  is  the  good  of  my  doctrine,  or  any  other 
man's  doctrine?    God  says  it.    It  is  here  in  the  Book. 

"Well!  but,"  he  says:  "it  does  not  seem  so  to  me."  My 
reply  is :  "What  difference  does  it  make  how  it  seems?  If 
God  says  it,  you've  got  to  square  to  it." 

"But,  I  can't  see  it  that  way!"  No  more  could  I  once 
— no  more  can  any  man  with  his  natural,  blind  and  un- 
converted heart.  That  is  just  what  God  says :  "The  nat- 
ural man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
neither  can  he  know  them  because  they  are  spiritually  dis- 
cerned." 

You  come  into  God's  house  then,  not  to  tell  God  what  you 
think;  but  to  find  out  what  He  thinks.  That  is  far  more 
important,  because  you  cannot  handle  God,  and  He  can 
handle  you. 

And  who  are  you,  anyhow  ?    A  child  of  yesterday — ignor- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  181 

ant,  fallible,  finite,  who  have  lived  your  whole  life  in  sin, 
with  now  and  then  a  spurt  at  goodness,  from  which  you 
fell  back. 

Who  are  you,  who  have  read  God's  Word  very  little,  who 
have  studied  it  in  a  comparison  of  texts,  in  an  honest  en- 
deavor to  get  at  its  meaning,  and  its  consistency  with  itself; 
next  to  none?  Who  are  you  to  stand  up  before  your  Maker 
and  the  Book  which  one  day  is  to  judge  you,  and  say:  "I 
believe  that,"  and  "I  don't  believe  that  other."  Who  are  you 
to  contend  against  God  ?   What  is  the  good  of  fighting  God  ? 

It  is  at  your  own  peril,  you  take  such  an  attitude,  because 
this  Book  is  your  only  Guide-Book  to  heaven,  your  only  An- 
chor of  hope,  your  only  Title  Deed  to  glory. 

Refuse  this  Book,  and  you  throw  away  your  guide-book 
through  an  unknown  wilderness,  you  slip  the  anchor  clench- 
ed within  the  veil,  you  burn  up  the  title  deed  of  your  eternal 
inheritance. 

Cavil  with  this  Book,  and  you  draw  the  noose  around  your 
own  neck,  you  pull  the  black  cap  down  over  your  own  face, 
you  spring  the  drop  from  under  you. 

The  question  then  is  not  that  of  the  human  reason.  "I 
think  this."  "I  think  that."  "I  think  the  other."  Sir:  God 
is  not  at  your  bar,  you  are  at  His.  Sir :  You  will  be  damned 
for  your  thoughts!     "Let  the  unrighteous  forsake  them." 

It  is  not  what  you  think ;  or  I  think.  It  is  what  the  Word 
of  God  says.  God  has  written  you  a  Bible  to  correct  your 
thoughts ;  on  purpose  to  teach  you  better  than  you  can  think. 
Dare  to  reject  the  Bible,  at  your  peril. 

Election  is  a  doctrine  which  no  human  reason  could  have 
discovered.  It  is  a  doctrine  against  which  the  human  reason 
universally,  at  first,  and  always  rebels.  It  is  a  doctrine,  how- 
ever, to  which  the  human  reason,  if  ever  saved,  must  consent. 
"He  that  is  of  God,  heareth  the  words  of  God.  He  that  re- 
ceiveth  not  My  words,  hath  one  that  judgeth  him ;  the  word 
that  I  have  spoken,  the  same  shall  judge  him  in  the  last  dav." 
(Joh.  8:47,  12:48.) 

"Oh,  but  my  friends  do  not  think  so !"  Then  you  have 
got  to  side  with  God  in  spite  of  your  friends. 

"Oh,  but  it  will  be  a  cross  to  me,  and  I  don't  half  under- 
stand it !"  All  right,  you  have  got  to  take  up  that  cross  and 


1 82  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

follow  your  light,  and  cling  to  your  God.    "Let  God  be  true, 
but  every  man  a  liar." 

I.  The  Truth  of  the  Doctrine. 

Election  is  in  the  Bible.  From  cover  to  cover  it  is  in  the 
Ribie.  It  is  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Bible ;  more  important 
— I  w:ll  explain  what  I  mean  by  and  by — more  important, 
than  even  the  cross. 

I  cannot  now  begin  with  Genesis,  and  show  how  God  chose 
Abel  and  rejected  Cain.  How  "the  children  not  yet  being 
born,  neither  having  done  good  or  evil,  that  election  might 
not  be  of  works,  God  loved  Jacob,  as  St.  Paul  tells  us,  (Rom. 
ix:n),  and  rejected  Esau. 

I  cannot  follow  down  the  whole  book.  Time  affords  me 
opportunity  for  only  a  few  texts,  but  they  are  enough.  Each 
one  is  a  bullet,  a  hot  shot,  a  64-pound  cannon-ball ;  no  re- 
sisting, no  standing,  no  evading,  no  dodging  it. 

"As  many  as  were  ordained  to  eternal  life,  believed." 
(Acts  13:48.) 

"According  as  He  hath  chosen  us  in  Him  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world  that  we  should  be  holy,"  not  be- 
cause we  were  holy,  nor  because  He  foresaw  we  would  be 
holy,  but  that  we  should  be  holy,  to  make  us  holy.  "Having 
predestinated  us  unto  the  adoption  of  children."  (Eph. 
i:4,  5-) 

"Many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen."     (Matt.  xx:i6.) 

"God  hath  from  the  beginning  chosen  you  unto  salva- 
tion."    (2  Thess.  ii:i3.) 

"I  speak  not  of  all,  I  know  whom  I  have  chosen."  (John 
xiii:i8.) 

"Ye  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you."  (John 
xv:i6.) 

"If  ye  were  of  the  world,  the  world  would  love  his  own; 
but  because  ye  are  not  of  the  world,  but  /  have  chosen  you 
out  of  the  world,  therefore  the  world  hateth  you"  (John 
xv:i9). 

"What  then?  Israel  hath  not  obtained  that  which  he 
seeketh  for  (though  he  was  a  'seeker,')  but  the  election 
hath  obtained  it  and  the  rest  were  blinded"  (Rom.  xi:7). 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  183 

"Even  so  then,  at  the  present  time,  there  remaineth  a 
remnant,  according  to  the  election  of  grace"  (Rom.  xi:5), 
and 

"We  are  bound  to  give  thanks  always  to  God  for  you, 
brethren  beloved  of  the  Lord,  because  God  hath  from  the  be- 
ginning CHOSEN  you  to  salvation  through  sanctification 
of  the  Spirit  and  belief  of  the  truth,  whereunto  He  called 
you  by  our  Gospel  to  the  obtaining  of  the  glory  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ"  (2  Thess.  ii :  13,  14). 

Of  course  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  1  cannot  quote  tne 
whole  Bible  to-night.  I  have  not  the  time,  nor  indeed  is  it 
needed.  A  man  who  is  determined  to  steel  himself  against 
God,  and  reject  one  single  text,  will  also  reject  20,000. 

Election  is  in  the  Bible,  and  Sovereign  Election.  "For  He 
saith  to  Moses,  I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have 
mercy;  and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I  will  have 
compassion.  So  then  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of 
him  that  runneth,  but  of  God  that  showeth  mercy"  (Rom. 
ix:i5,  16). 

"Therefore  He  hath  mercy  on  whom  He  will  have  mercy, 
and  whom  He  will  He  hardeneth."  It  does  not  say:  "They 
harden  themselves;"  it  says:  "He  hardeneth"  (Rom.  ix:i8). 

"Nay,  but  O  man,  who  art  thou  that  repliest  against 
God?  Hath  not  the  potter  power  over  the  clay,  of  the 
same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto  honor,  and  another  to 
dishonor?"  (Rom.  ix:20,  21.) 

"To  them  which  stumble  at  the  word,  being  disobedient 
whereunto  also  they  were  appointed  (1  Pet.  ii:8).  "Ungod- 
ly men  which  were  before  ordained  to  this  condemnation." 
(Jude4.) 

Not  only  is  Election  in  the  Bible,  and  Sovereign  Election ; 
but  also  Preterition,  or  Passing  by. 

Of  course  if  God  chooses  some  He  passes  by  others.  That 
is  as  clear  as  the  nose  on  your  face  or  as  sunlight  at  noon. 

God,  when  He  chose  Elisha,  passed  by  ten  thousand  other 
men  just  as  likely  and  just  as  fit  for  service  as  he.  He  chose 
Elisha  first  and  then  He  fitted  him.  It  says  so.  He  put  him 
right  into  training  under  Elijah.  More  than  this,  He  gave 
him  a  double  portion  of  the  spirit.  A  man  is  dead  until  he 
receives  the  double  portion  of  the  spirit.  Not  common  grace 
alone  which  all  men  have,  but  double  grace  which  all  men 


184  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

have  not.  The  first  sign  of  Election  is  the  moving,  drawing, 
working  and  effectual  working  of  the  Spirit.  The  Holy 
Ghost  makes  us  willing  in  the  day  of  God's  power.  He 
makes  us  believe  what  once  we  did  not  believe  and  love 
what  once  we  did  not  love — "therefore,  if  any  man  be  in 
Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature ;  old  things  are  passed  away ; 
behold!  all  things  are  become  new"  (2  Cor.  \:\y). 

God  chooses  some  and  passes  by  others.  I  do  not  want 
to  be  passed  by,  and,  if  I  can  help  it,  I  do  not  mean  to  be 
either.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  bow  right  down  to  God's 
wyord  and  let  Him  do  with  me  as  He  will.  I  believe  if  I  do 
that,  He  will  be  gracious.  In  any  case  He  will  do  right,  for 
what  do  I  merit  from  Him  but  damnation?  I  am  not  in 
a  situation  to  dictate  tejrns  to  Jehovah. 

God  passes  by,  and  He  is  bound  to  have  some  of  us  see 
this,  and  cry  out  for  mercy. 

I  am  touching  on  Pretention  to-night.  Why  do  I  touch 
it?    Because  the  air  is  full  of  it. 

Because  God  has  intended  to  arouse  a  sleepy  Church  and 
He  has  permitted  enemies  inside  the  Church,  calling  them- 
selves ministers,  to  raise  this  question.  We  have  not  raised 
it.  We  are  satisfied  with  our  Confession.  We  have  been 
preaching  the  Gospel  along  in  a  sleepy  sort  of  affectionate 
way,  and  all  at  once  men  begin  to  contradict  God  and  raise 
discussion  and  set  the  Church  and  world  on  fire. 

Yet  God  intended  it  to  rouse  a  sleepy  Church  and  vindicate 
His  sovereign  glory. 

This  week  I  received  a  letter  from  one  of  our  Sunday 
School  teachers,  which  makes  this  point  so  well,  that  I  will 
give  you  his  letter: 

"Dear  Pastor — Have  you  noticed  the  Providence  in 
connection  with  next  Sunday's  lesson?  About  three  years 
ago,  the  International  Committee  met  and  picked  out  the 
Course  of  Lessons  for  1890,  little  knowing  what  would 
happen  in  the  meantime.  For  the  last  three  months  the 
world  and  Church  have  been  agitated  over  the  "Pro"  and 
"Con"  in  regard  to  Preterition.  Now,  after  all  the  wise  men 
have  had  their  say,  on  next  Sunday  every  one  (except  the 
Episcopalians),  whether  for  or  against — in  America,  Ger- 
many, France,  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  China  must  teach 
Preterition,  using  Christ's  own  words  and  His  two  exam- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  185 

pies" — "Many  widows  were  in  Israel,  but  to  none  of  them 
was  Elias  sent,  but  to  Sarepta  to  a  woman  which  was  a 
widow" — "Many  lepers  were  in  Israel  in  the  time  of 
Elisha,  but  none  of  them  were  cleansed  save  Naaman  the 
Syrian."  "I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have  mercy, 
and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I  will  have  compas- 
sion."   "Ye  believe  not,  because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep." 

"You  say  then,  that  God  made  some  men  to  damn  them  ?" 
No !  I  don't  say  so.  I  deny  it.  I  simply  stand  by  the  Bible, 
and  I  take  and  put  texts  in  plain  English,  and  in  their  plain 
and  straight-forward  sense.  God  can  pass  by  a  sinner  who, 
for  his  sins  deserves  hell-fire,  without  being  charged  with 
making  that  sinner  to  damn  him.  God  made  man,  and  man 
made  himself  a  sinner,  and  man  himself  must  take  the  con- 
sequences of  that.  Whoever  says  I  say,  "God  made  men  to 
damn  them,"  slanders  me.    It  is  a  lie ! 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Bible  is  that  fallen  sinners — notice 
now,  fallen  sinners  deserve  nothing  from  God  but  damna- 
tion. If  He  damns  them,  then  they  get  their  desert — if  He 
passes  by  them,  I  say,  and  damns  them  for  sin,  because  they 
are  sinners,  they  get  their  desert.  If  He  saves  them,  they 
do  not  get  their  desert,  they  get  mercy. 

Now,  God  does  not  save  all  men.  Some  men  go  to  hell, 
and  go  there  because  they  deserve  it. 

That  is  all  that  we  say.  Only,  when  men  are  saved,  it  is 
God  who  makes  the  difference,  and  not  the  men  themselves. 
It  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  let  him  will  never  so  hard ;  men 
are  not  born  again  by  the  will  of  the  flesh.  It  is  not  of  him 
that  willeth.  He  cannot  will.  He  is  too  fallen.  It  is  God 
who  shows  mercy,  who  melts  down  his  will  and  gives  him  a 
good  will — or,  as  the  Bible  puts  it — makes  him  willing  in  the 
day  of  His  power. 

Put  in  a  nut-shell,  our  doctrine  simply  is  this :  //  any 
man  be  saved,  it  is  God's  will  that  saves  him;  if  any  man 
be  damned,  it  is  his  own  will  damns  him.  That  is  our  doc- 
trine, that  is  all  that  we  teach  and  believe. 

That  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Church  and  of  all 
the  Calvinists.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession. It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England. 
[See  the  17th  of  the  39  articles.]  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
Baptists.    Take  the  third  article  of  the  Old  Baptist  Con- 


186  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

fession:  "By  the  decree  of  God,  for  the  manifestation  of 
His  glory,  some  men  and  angels  are  predestinated,  or  fore- 
ordained to  eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  praise 
of  his  glorious  grace;  others  being  left  to  act  in  their  sin, 
to  their  just  condemnation,  to  the  praise  of  His  glorious  jus- 
tice." 

That  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Church  sustained  by 
ail  the  holy  creeds  of  Christendom.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
Waldenses.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  Augustine ;  the  doctrine  of 
Paul ;  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  :  "I  thank  Thee,  O  Father,  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  because  Thou  hast  hid  these  things 
from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto 
babes.  Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy 
sight." 

Antiquity  backs  us.  The  Bible  backs  us.  If  any  man  be 
damned,  his  own  sin;  his  own  willfulness  damns  him.  If 
any  man  be  saved,  God's  mercy  saves  him;  God's  will  saves 
him.  By  that  doctrine  we  stand.  That  is  the  doctrine, 
now  . .  ;    ;  j .  Jjjj 

II.  What  is  the  good  of  the  doctrine?  What  is  its  work- 
ing, its  practical  power? 

It  is  a  mighty  power,  so  mighty  that  I  do  not  know  that 
I  ever  preached  it  directly  without  the  conversion  of  souls. 

I  use  it  for  business.  I  preach  Election,  myself  an  elect 
minister,  believing  that  some  are  elected,  and  that  God  will 
give  me  those  souls.  I  preach  it  expecting  results — ex- 
pecting them  to-night.  I  preach  it  in  reliance  on  God  that 
He  will  send  down  His  power.  i 

i.  Then  election  shows  the  justice  of  God.  Suppose  that 
God  said  in  His  law,  "The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die ;" 
and  men  went  on  to  sin  and  nobody  did  die,  how  could  we 
ever  know  that  God's  justice  was  anything  more  than  a 
sham?  How  could  we  know,  if  no  sinner  ever  was  damned, 
that  there  was  in  God  any  honest  and  resolute  justice? 

"Oh  but  we  should  see  it  in  the  case  of  the  devils !"  I 
beg  your  pardon — we  never  should  see  it.  We  should  hear 
of  it  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear,  that  is  all.  We  never  be- 
lieve in  anything  until  it  comes  home  to  us. 

Besides,  if  God  damns  devils  for  sin,  why  not  also  damn 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  187 

men?  Are  we  any  better  than  they?  Is  human  nature  any 
better  than  angelic  nature?" 

If  God  had  saved  all  sinners — all  our  race,  there  would 
have  been  a  question  forever,  even  in  heaven,  whether  we 
did  not  merit  it — whether  we  were  not  somehow  better — 
less  guilty  than  they? 

If  God  had  saved  us  all;  sin,  to  all  eternity,  would  have 
been  a  light  thing  to  us.  What  makes  us  see  and  feel  sin  is 
being  found  out,  and  being  found  out  when  we  know  that 
we  must  be  punished. 

A  man  never  feels  sin  so  long  as  he  is  secure.  It  is  the 
fear  of  being  found  out — i.  e.  of  being  punished,  which 
brings  sin's  enormity  home  to  him. 

Now,  when  in  heaven  we  shall  look  down  and  see  men 
damned  and  burning  for  ages  for  just  the  things  and  only 
the  things  that  zve  did,  we  shall  get,  to  all  eternity,  a  deeper, 
deeper  sense  of  what  sin  is ;  and  snail  cry  with  nezver  and 
profounder  accents,  "Holy  !"  "Holy  !"  "Holy  !" 

And  that  brings  me  to  say  what  I  said  in  the  beginning 
of  this  address — that  if  a  man  is  going  to  deny  one  of  these 
two  things — Election  or  the  Gospel,  he  had  better  deny  the 
Gospel  than  Election. 

Why?  Why,  because  Election  is  more  fundamental — lies 
back  of  the  Gospel.  He  who  denies  the  Gospel  shuts  out 
mercy  of  course.  He  claims  that  men  get  their  deserts,  and 
that  this  race  is  ruined  universally  without  any  hope — just 
like  the  devils.  This  ruins  man  but  does  not  ruin  God.  The 
denial  of  Election  ruins  God.  It  denies  His  Sovereignty. 
It  denies  that  He  may  do  as  He  will  with  His  own.  It 
denies  His  government — His  right  to  punish  wicked  fallen 
creatures.  It  obliges  Him  to  save  them — will  He,  nill  He. 
It  makes  their  will,  not  His  will,  the  governing  and  over- 
riding principle.  They  run  the  universe  and  not  He.  It 
breaks  down  the  exclusive  walls  of  heaven  and  leaves  the 
godless  universe  to  roll,  like  a  deluge,  over  God's  prostrate 
sceptre  and  throne.  A  God  with  His  hands  tied  is  no  God. 
A  God  who  cannot  exercise  a  sovereign  prerogative  based 
upon  justice  is  no  God.  He  is  littler — smaller  than  the 
Governor  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  who  can  pardon  or 
refuse  to  grant  pardon  for  reasons  sufficient  to  himself.  A 
God  without  Election  were  a  God  without  a  government 


1 88  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

— without  a  throne — without  respectability,  or  personality. 
A  God  obliterated — sponged  out.  Election  saves  God  by 
showing  His  justice.  He  does  not  spare  all  when  he  might, 
if  he  would ;  in  order  that  sin  may  be  seen,  and  seen — on  a 
scale  sufficiently  grand  to  vindicate  God — to  get  its  deserts. 

2.  Election  shows  the  mercy  of  God.  Mercy  is  favor  to 
the  undeserving — to  the  hell-deserving. 

Very  well.  Election  lets  some  go  to  hell ;  then  we  see 
that  we  ought  all  to  go  there.  But  mercy  steps  in  like  a 
drag-net  and  draws  out  a  multitude  no  man  can  number. 

This  multitude  is  not  saved  for  what  it  deserves ;  if  it  got 
its  deserts  it  would  go  down  to  hell  with  the  rest.  All  it 
can  say  is,  "I  deserve  to  be  damned,  but  God  has  had 
mercy" — 

"A  monument  of  grace, 

A  sinner  saved  by  blood; 
The  streams  of  love  I  trace 

Up  to  their  fountain — God ; 
And  in  His  mighty  breast  I  see, 
Eternal  thoughts  of  love  to  me." 

3.  Election  brings  the  sinner  to  a  true  submission.  He 
sees  this  thing  is  more  serious.  It  is  not  simply  a  flutter  and 
flurry  and  get  men  into  the  church.  If  men  remain  without 
a  new  birth  and  saving  faith — what  Scripture  calls  the  faith 
of  God's  elect — you  may  get  them  anywhere,  everywhere, 
and  they  are  rebels  still.  They  are  aliens  and  foreigners 
still.  They  are  ready  at  any  pretense  to  desert — always 
ready  to  criticize  and  cavil,  and  argue  and  quarrel  with  God. 

Now  Election  shows  a  man  that  God  is  not  under  his  gov- 
ernment, but  that  he  is  under  God's  government.  That  God 
is  not  standing  before  his  bar,  but  he  before  God's. 

The  question  then  is  not  "How  he  shall  handle  God,"  but 
"How  God  may  handle  him."  If  he  is  not  careful,  God  will 
pass  by  him.  If  he  is  too  noisy,  too  bold,  and  too  self- 
confident,  God  may  take  away  the  Holy  Ghost  and  leave  him 
to  the  unpardonable  sin.  He  is  of  no  account  anyhow — a 
drop  in  the  ocean.  His  salvation  is  of  far  more  importance 
to  him  than  it  can  be  to  God. 

He  had  better,  then,  get  down  before  God  and  sue  humbly 
for  mercy.    If  I  saw  a  train  of  cars  thundering  down,  and 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  189 

myself  on  the  track,  and  that  to  fall  flat  between  the  rails 
was  my  only  salvation,  I  would  fall  flat.  I  would  not  stand 
up  and  argue  with  the  locomotive  that  it  ought  not  to  run 
on  those  tracks,  or  run  so  precisely,  or  so  fast,  or  that  it 
ought  to  stop.    If  I  saw  it  coming,  I'd  drop. 

Sinner  what  is  the  use  of  fighting  with  God?  You  carry 
your  point  to  your  own  satisfaction,  but  you  are  damned  all 
the  same.    God  does  not  care  for  your  point. 

Sinner  art  thou  still  secure, 

Wilt  thou  still  refuse  to  pray, 
Can  thine  heart  or  hand  endure. 

In  the  Lord's  avenging  day? 
See  his  mighty  arm  is  bared, 

Awful  terrors  clothe  His  brow, 
For  His  judgments  stand  prepared, 

Thou  must  either  break  or  bow. 

Down!  Down  with  you!  Down  in  the  dust,  and  cry  "If 
He  slay  me  it  would  be  just,  yet,  though  He  slay  me,  still 
will  I  trust  in  Him." 

4.  Election  kills,  at  the  root,  salvation  by  merits  and 
works.  Any  movement  of  the  will  is  a  work.  It  is  some- 
thing from  me,  which  /  do.  It  may  not  run  out  into  the 
grosser  forms  of  Popish  penance ;  it  may  remain  the  unde- 
veloped Protestant  repentance — that  is  seeking,  resolving, 
or  trying  to  do,  or  to  trust.  Election,  by  laying  the  axe  at 
the  root  of  the  tree  and  declaring  "it  is  not  of  him  that 
willeth,"  cuts  human  merit  up  both  root  and  branch,  and 
plants  a  system  solitary,  isolated,  separated  by  a  bridgeless 
chasm  from  every  other  system  of  religion  upon  earth. 

That  brings  in  the  last  item ;  and 

5.  Election  makes  a  sinner  see  and  feel  his  dependence 
upon  God's  Spirit. 

If  ever  you  are  to  be  saved,  my  Brother ;  you  will  be 
saved  by  God's  Spirit.  Give  up  every  notion  of  saving  your- 
self ;  or  helping  to  save  your  own  self  and  look  away  from 
yourself,  to  Christ,  by  the  help  of  His  Spirit. 

"If  I  am  elect,  I  shall  be  saved,  let  me  do  what  I  will !" 

No,  you  will  not  be.  If  you  are  elect,  you  will  show  the 
signs  of  election. 

One  of  those  signs  is  to  quit  playing  with  conscience  and 


190  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

cavilling  and  quarreling  with  Scripture.  A  man  who  is 
elected  swallows  God's  word  whole.  I  would  rather  chew 
and  swallow  this  Bible  down,  leaf  after  leaf,  covers  and 
all,  than  deny  one  single  word  in  it. 

A  man  who  is  elect  doesn't  joke  and  palter  and  play  with 
serious  things.     He  is  humble. 

A  man  who  is  elect  reads  his  Bible.  He  reads  it  for  light. 
He  reads  it  and  prays  as  he  reads.  He  reads  it  on  his  knees 
and  turns  it  into  prayer,  "Open  Thou  mine  eyes  that  I  may 
behold  wondrous  things  out  of  Thy  Law." 

A  man  who  is  elect,  prays.  If  God  has  elected  you,  He  is 
drawing  you  by  His  Spirit,  and  the  first  thing  He  draws 
you  to  do  is  to  pray ;  "O  God  do  not  pass  by  me !  Do  not 
take  Thy  Spirit  from  me.  I  am  bad  enough  now,  what  will 
I  be  if  left  by  the  Spirit  ?'\ 

A  man  who  is  elect  is  in  earnest.  He  doesn't  get  to 
church  about  once  in  three  or  four  times ;  or  once,  say  a 
quarter.  He  does  not  put  off  God.  He  knows  he  is  a  poor 
fool,  and  wishes  that  God  would  make  him  wise  to  salvation. 
He  therefore  heeds  the  monition :  "Hear  instruction  and  be 
wise,  and  refuse  it  not.  Blessed  is  the  man  that  heareth, 
watching  daily  at  my  gates,  waiting  at  the  post  of  my 
doors." 

A  man  who  is  elect  follows  the  Spirit,  cherishes  the  Spirit, 
yields  to  the  Spirit,  is  afraid  to  grieve  the  Spirit. 

He  follows  the  Spirit.  But  the  Spirit  leads  him  to  Christ, 
to  trust  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

If  you  are  elect,  my  dear  friend,  you  will  look  for  these 
marks ;  above  all  you  will  ask  yourself,  "Do  I  believe  upon 
Christ?  Do  I  risk  myself  helpless,  on  Christ?  Do  I  believe 
God's  promise  when  He  says  He  will  save  me,  if  I  trust 
over,  just  as  I  am,  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ?" 

Do  I  trust?  And  do  I  make  that  all?  Do  I  rest  on  the 
blood,  and  that  only.  Do  I  see  more  virtue  in  Christ's 
Blood  to  save,  than  in  all  the  sins  of  my  life  and  the  sin 
of  my  nature,  to  damn  me  ? 

Do  I  rest  now?  Do  I  trust  now?  Then  what?  Then  I 
am  elect. 

You  come  to  Christ,  and  then  you  will  know — not  until 
then,  your  election  of  God.  Election  is  not  first,  but  Christ 
first, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE  191 

You  have  seen  somewhere,  perhaps,  the  story  of  Malachi, 
a  sturdy  Calvinist  of  Cornwall.  An  Arminian  brother  owed 
him  £2.  "Malachi,"  said  the  brother,  "a«m  I  predestinated 
to  pay  you  that  debt?"  "Put  the  £2  into  my  hand,"  said 
Malachi,  stretching  out  his  broad  palm,  "and  I'll  tell  you  at 
once."  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  then,  in  the 
Blood,  you  will  spell  your  election.  Election  is  an  ex  post 
-facto  assurance.  Do,  and  then  you  will  know — obey,  and 
then  you  are  blest;  surely  a  natural  common-sense  order. 
If  you  are  trusting  in  Christ  I  will  tell  you  how  you  got  to 
that  point.  You  got  there  because  the  Spirit  drew  you.  You 
may  not  have  been  conscious  of  the  drawing ;  you  may  not 
have  discerned  the  supernatural,  but  it  was  there.  Inch  by 
inch  the  Spirit  drew  you — little  by  little  the  Spirit  made  you 
willing.  "I  girded  thee  though  thou  has  not  known  me," 
that  is  the  sacred  secret  of  your  spiritual  life.  God  sent 
the  Spirit,  and  because  He  chose  to  send  the  Spirit,  and  the 
choice  runs  back  to  everlasting;  for  right  well  you  know 
that  if  God  had  not  chosen  you,  you  never  would  have 
chosen  Him. 

If  any  man  is  non-elect  he  will  not  be  damned,  let  him  do 
as  he  pleases.  He  will  only  be  damned  if  he  sins  against 
light. 

If  any  man  is  elect  he  will  not  be  saved  let  him  do  as  he 
pleases,  he  will  only  be  saved  as  he  trusts  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  he  will  only  trust  as  the  Spirit  draws  him  to 
trust,  and  I  believe  the  Holy  Ghost  is  drawing  some  now. 


192  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


PRETERITION ; 
JUSTICE  OF  GOD  IN  THE  PERMISSION  OF  SIN. 


Ps.  xcvii  :2. 


"Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him :  righteousness  and 
judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His  throne." 

All  religion  starts  from  the  being  of  God — a  fact  recog- 
nized by  consciousness,  which  runs  in  our  blood  and  roots 
deepest  of  the  instincts  of  mankind. 

No  nation  is  without  the  recognition  of  God.  In  no 
school  of  philosophy  has  His  existence  been  brought  into 
question.  History  does  not  reckon  20  avowed  atheists  in 
the  whole  6000  years  of  the  world's  life.  Neither  is  the 
name  of  one  atheist  recorded  in  Scripture.  So  fixed  and 
central  is  the  recognition  of  God  in  the  convictions  of  man- 
kind that  Satan  himself  never  deems  it  worth  while  to  argue 
the  point.  He  nowhere  denies  the  existence  of  God,  but 
himself  promptly  owns  Him  in  the  presence  of  Christ,  and 
indeed,  in  his  first  question  to  Eve  in  the  garden.  The 
being  of  God  shines  brighter  to  the  moral  eye  than  does  the 
physical  sun  to  the  natural.  As  well  argue  the  non-exist- 
ence of  daylight  as  to  argue  the  non-existence  of  that  Sun 
behind  the  sun,  within  the  circle  of  whose  radiance  all 
nature's  beams  are  comprehended,  swallowed  up,  submerged 
and  lost ;  which  is  the  source  of  moral  light,  being  and  bless- 
edness and  whose  withdrawment  means  their  blight  and 
their  obliteration. 

But,  if  there  be  a  God,  the  fact  means  everything,  for 
then,  confessedly,  He  is  the  author,  the  preserver  and  the 
final  end  of  everything,  "for  of  Him  and  through  Him  and 
to  Him  are  all  things." 

If  there  be  a  God,  He  must,  in  His  being,  outweigh  the 
whole  universe  which  is  born  of  his  breath.  Roll  the 
universe  together  with  its  decillions  of  angels  and  men  and 
with  all  the  coruscations  of  its  constellated  stars,  what  are 
these  but  an  atom  of  dust  to  the  immensity  of  God  ?  Placed 
in  the  opposite  scale  of  the  balance  what  do  they  weigh? 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  193 

Nothing,  and  less  than  nothing,  even  than  vanity  itself. 
"He  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  the  inhabitants 
thereof  are  as  grasshoppers — to  whom  then  will  ye  liken 
Me  or  shall  I  be  equal  saith  the  Holy  One?" 

But  if  God  be  a  being  thus  transcendent,  He  is  to  be  re- 
garded, with  awe.  His  name  is  not  to  be  flippantly  men- 
tioned, His  methods  are  not  to  be  presumptuously  and  reck- 
lessly impugned ;  His  declarations  are  not  to  be  irreverently 
questioned,  set  aside,  nor  made  the  target  of  a  polished 
sneer,  still  less  the  object  of  a  coarse  or  ribald  wit. 

"Glorious  in  holiness,  fearful  in  praises,  a  God  doing 
wonders."  "I  was  dumb  because  Thou  didst  it."  "Who  art 
thou,  O  man,  that  repliest  against  God?" 

Irreverence  is  the  sin  of  the  age.  "Our  tongues  are  our 
own,"  is  the  sentiment,  "who  is  Lord  over  us?"  Alike  we 
touch  with  our  unseemly  jests  the  sanctities  of  nature  and 
the  solemnities  of  God.  Xo  Sinai  sobers  us.  no  Calvary 
subdues  us.  In  places,  highest  of  the  high,  Inspiration  itself 
is  arraigned,  and  the  climax  is  reached  in  words  like  these 
from  the  lips  of  a  leading  theological  professor,  "Paul  tells 
me  that  I  am  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter.  I  deny  it. 
This  word  of  Paul's  is  not  the  last  word,  if  it  were  it  would 
be  a  satire  on  reason  itself  and  the  suicide  of  revelation." 

"Be  still  and  know  that  I  am  God.  Shall  the  thing  formed 
say  to  Him  that  formed  it,  why  hast  Thou  made  me  thus  ?" 

"Be  still  and  know  that  I  am  God,"  is  the  true  motto  foi 
this  hour — which  seems  to  be  an  interval  of  lull  like  that 
when  Enoch  prophesied — a  movement  of  suspense,  of  eating 
and  drinking,  of  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  above 
whose  reveling  and  music  rings  again  the  old  time  warning, 
"Behold  the  Lord  cometh  with  ten  thousands  of  His  saints 
to  execute  judgment  upon  all  and  to  convince  all  that  are 
ungodly  among  them  of  all  their  hard  speeches  which  un- 
godly sinners  have  spoken  against  Him." 

The  crying  sin  of  our  day  is  irreverence — impatience  with 
God — wilfulness,  the  disposition  to  cry,  "Let  us  break  their 
bonds  asunder  and  cast  away  their  cords." 

Perhaps  in  Edward's  day  it  was  otherwise.  The  shadow 
of  an  earthly  throne  was  upon  men,  and  behind  it  was  the 
shadow  of  the  Eternal  Throne.  That  may  have  made  men 
more  submissive,  more  obedient  in  thought  to  God,  more 


194  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

ready  to  take  and  keep  their  place  at  His  foot-stool — I  do 
not  know.    The  tendency  at  present  is  the  other  way. 

But  God  alone  is  great  and  He  must  be  exalted.  No 
preaching  does  so  much  as  that  which  tones  up  sentiment ; 
and  nothing  tones  it  like  exalting  God.  The  sovereignty 
of  God  has  always  been  greatly  blessed  in  revival.  No 
revival  can  be  deep  which  does  not  take  God  for  its  center 
and  does  not  insist  on  His  claims.  For  the  main  thing  in 
conversion  is  not  that  sinners  shall  be  reconciled  to  them- 
selves, nor  placed  pleasantly  in  their  relations  to  the  Church, 
society,  their  fellow  men ;  but  the  main  thing  is  that  sinners 
shall  be  reconciled  to  God  and  placed  right  in  their  relations 
to  Him,  and  everything  short  of  this,  which  does  not  imply 
a  true  change  of  heart,  and  of  our  affections  and  our  feel- 
ings towards  God,  is  no  conversion ;  and  the  excitement 
which  aims  to  produce  such  conversion  is  no  revival. 

Accordingly,  says  Jonathan  Edwards,  "I  think  I  have 
found  that  no  discourses  have  been  more  remarkably  blessed 
than  those  in  which  the  doctrine  of  God's  absolute  sov- 
ereignty with  regard  to  the  salvation  of  sinners,  and  His 
just  liberty  with  regard  to  answering  the  prayers,  or  suc- 
ceeding the  pains  of  mere  natural  men,  have  been  insisted 
upon.  I  never  found  so  much  immediate  saving  fruit  from 
any  discourses  offered  to  my  congregation  as  from  those 
based  on  Rom.  iii :  19,  'That  every  mouth  may  be  stopped,' 
showing  from  thence  that  it  would  be  just  with  God  forever 
to  reject  and  cast  off  mere  natural  men." 

The  same  sort  of  testimony  is  confirmed  in  our  own  days 
by  Mr.  Spurgeon's  work  and  by  the  reports  which  come 
from  Mr.  Jones's  recent  work  in  San  Francisco. 

Those  who  take  in  the  Christian  Intelligencer  will  see  in 
an  article  of  this  last  week  on  the  "Law  and  the  Gospel."  a 
confirmation  of  the  words  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  "Mr. 
Moody's  work,"  I  quote  from  the  article  referred  to,  "was 
one  of  the  best  ever  realized  here  or  anywhere  by  him.  But 
Sam  Jones's  old  style  denunciation  of  sin  and  its  punishment 
forever  in  hell,  burst  on  this  community  like  a  cyclone. 
Moody  may  have  benefited  Christians  more ;  but  Sam  Jones 
reached  sinners  more  than  any  or  all  the  evangelists  that 
ever  came  to  this  coast.  His  is  the  style  for  the  case- 
hardened,  conscience-seared  old  sinners,  to  whom  Moody's 
monotone  of  Love !  Love !  Love  is  only  soft  sawder  and 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  195 

falls  off  like  water  from  a  cluck's  back.  Even  Mr.  Moody' 
himself,  when  he  chanced  once  or  twice  to  preach  the  Law 
as  well  as  the  Gospel,  had  more  inquiries  than  from  any 
other  of  his  meetings  when  he  preached  the  usual  way." 

"Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him,  righteousness 
and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His  throne !"  It  is  not 
pretended  that  it  is  easy  to  adjust  in  right  proportions  all 
God's  lights  and  shadows.  It  is  not  true,  however,  as  was 
said  in  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  the  other  day,  that  the 
greatest  soul  winners  are  the  men  who  keep  repeating, 
"Come  to  Jesus !" 

The  greatest  soul  winners  are  and  have  always  been  those 
who  preach  both  sides  of  it,  who  with  the  sugar  mingle 
some  few  honest  grains  of  salt — sharp,  quick  and  pungent, 
who  show  that  it  is  indeed  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  living  God,  and  that  God,  outside  of  Christ,  is 
a  consuming  fire." 

It  is  not  pretended  that  the  sovereignty  of  God  is  not 
shrouded  in  an  awful  mystery.  But  that  mystery  is  only  the 
effect  of  the  inevitable  chasm  split  between  a  worm  and  Je- 
hovah— between  the  finite  and  infinite  One.  If  God  were 
not  a  mystery  He  would  not  be  God  to  us,  and  God  could  not 
be  a  mystery  without  something  in  His  dealings,  dark, 
inscrutable,  and  calling  for  a  check  upon  the  thoughts  of 
vain,  presumptuous  man.  Nothing  is  a  mystery  in  which 
there  is  not  something  dark.  As  soon  as  all  is  light,  there 
is  no  longer  a  mystery.  So  the  text  puts  it — "Clouds  and 
darkness  are  round  about  Him,  righteousness  and  judg- 
ment are  the  habitation  of  His  throne !" 

Of  course,  if  God  have  a  throne.  He  is  a  sovereign.  If  He 
be  a  sovereign  at  all,  being  God,  He  is  an  absolute  sovereign. 
A  God  touched  or  moved  in  His  will  by  His  creatures, 
swayed  by  His  creatures,  were  no  God.  It  just  comes  to  this, 
that  God  must  sway  or  be  swayed ;  rule  or  be  ruled ;  do  as 
He  pleases,  or  be  thwarted  in  His  pleasure ;  when  we  say 
"God,"  therefore,  we  assert  a  Sovereignty  absolute. 

We  assert  God's  right  to  control  and  to  dispose  of  the  uni- 
verse which  He  has  made  for  His  glory,  just  as  He  will 
and  according  to  His  good  pleasure. 

We  assert  God's  absolute  right  to  control  and  dispose  of 
all  men  and  things  in  the  universe — which  make  up  the  uni- 


196  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

verse — just  as  He  will  and  according  to  His  mere  good 
pleasure.  "Hath  not  the  Potter  power  over  the  clay — of 
the  same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto  honor  and  another 
unto  dishonor?'' 

The  universe,  therefore,  being,  as  it  is,  the  production  of 
the  infinitely  wise,  powerful,  holy  and  benevolent  Jehovah, 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  best  possible  universe — and  not  only 
so,  but  it  is,  at  this  moment,  and  at  every  moment  just  what, 
at  the  moment,  God  would  have  it  to  be,  and  in  all  its 
particulars — sin  not  excepted. 

That  leads  me  up  to  the  Points  which  I  make  in  the 
present  discourse — which  are  three: 

1.  It  is  right  for  God  to  permit  sin. 

II.  If  so,  then  it  is  right  for  God  to  pass  by  sinners  and 
to  punish  sin. 

III.  That  any  exemption  of  any  sinner  from  punishment, 
must  be  an  act  of  mere  grace. 

I. — It  is  right,  for  God,  to  permit  sin. 

Sin  is  in  the  world.  It  could  not  be  in  the  world  if  not 
permitted.    Then  it  is  perfectly  right  for  God  to  permit  sin. 

i.  Sin  is  in  the  world.  Plenty  of  it — patent  to  sense — 
patent  to  consciousness,  a  soul  defiling,  mind-blighting,  body 
destroying  evil. 

2.  Sin  could  not  be  in  the  world,  evil  could  not  be  in  the 
world,  without  the  permission  of  God. 

To  suppose  opposite,  is  to  suppose  that  God  is  not  om- 
nipotent, that  there  is  a  limit  to  what  He  can  do,  for,  with- 
out doubt,  He  does  stop  some  sin;  but  at  a  certain  limit,  He 
is  checked  and  driven  back.  To  put  it,  as  the  Arminian 
puts  it,  ''God  does  all  He  possibly  can,  to  hinder  natural  and 
moral  evil,  but  He  cannot  prevail.  Men  will  not  let  Him 
have  His  wish.  He  therefore  has  to  make  a  virtue  of  neces- 
sity ;  and,  unwilling  and  reluctant  and  restive,  and  uneasy 
as  He  may  be,  to  submit.  Sin  and  evil  are  too  much  for 
Him; 

The  universe  He  fain  would  save. 

But  longs  for  what  he  cannot  have ! 

We   therefore   worship,   praise   and   laud 

A  disappointed,  helpless  God !" 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE.  197 

Precisely  the  opposite  view  is  compelled  by  proper  sover- 
eignty, and  by  the  voice  of  Scripture:  "For  of  Him,  and 
through  Him,  and  to  Him  are  all  things"  (Rom.  XK36). 
"Shall  there  be  evil  in  the  city  and  the  Lord  hath  not  done 
it?"  (Amos  iii  :6.)  "That  they  may  know  from  the  rising  of 
the  sun  and  from  the  west  that  there  is  none  beside  Me.  I 
am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else.  I  form  the  light  and 
create  darkness;  I  make  peace  and  create  evil.  I,  the  Lord, 
do  all  these  things"  (Isa.  xlv:7).  "The  Lord  hath  made 
all  things  for  Himself;  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of 
evil"  (Prov.  xvi.-4).  "To  them  which  stumble  at  the  word, 
being  disobedient,  whereunto  also  they  were  appointed" 
(1  Pet.  ii:8).  "Ungodly  men  who  were  before  of  old  or- 
dained to  this  condemnation"  (Jude  4).  "God  gave  thou 
over  to  a  reprobate  mind  to  do  those  things  which  are  not 
convenient"  (Rom.  i:28).  "Who  is  he  that  saith,  and  it 
cometh  to  pass,  and  the  Lord  commandeth  it  not"  (Lam. 
iii  :37).  "For  this  cause  God  shall  send  them  strong  delu- 
sions that  they  should  believe  a  lie"  (2  Thess.  ii:ii). 

These  and  hundreds  of  similar  texts,  make  it  as  evident 
as  daylight  that  God  is  seated  on  a  throne  of  universal 
sovereignty  and  that  He  is  so  seated  upon  it,  as  not  to  be 
shaken. 

"He  sits  on  no  precarious  throne, 
Nor  borrows  leave  to  be." 

His  universe  is  just  what  He  has  decreed  it.  He  sends 
forth  His  virtue  and  withholds  it  at  His  pleasure.  There  is 
therefore  a  complete  and  strenuous  control  at  every  point. 
God  uses  the  Assyrian  as  the  rod  of  His  anger,  although  the 
Assyrian  in  his  sinful  war  upon  Israel  knows  nothing  of 
God.  God  bids  Shimei  curse  David ;  and  He  restrains 
Leviathan,  that  old  serpent,  turning  him  about  as  with  a 
hook  in  his  nostrils.  He  decrees  alike  the  crucifixion  of 
Christ  and  the  conversion  of  Paul ;  the  treachery  of  Judas 
and  the  restoration  of  Peter.  From  the  Bible  it  is  perfectly 
clear  that,  as  at  the  first,  without  God  was  not  anything 
made  which  was  made,  so  now,  without  Him  is  not  any- 
thing done  that  is  done.* 

*See  Zanchius  de  Predestinatione. 


198  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

3.  If  sin  be  in  the  world,  and  if  sin  be  permitted,  then  it 
is  perfectly  right  for  God  to  permit  sin. 

God  does  do  it,  then  it  is  right  to  do  it.  Can  God  do 
wrong?  Can  He  deny  Himself?  Shall  not  the  judge  of 
all  the  earth  do  right? 

In  General,  permitting  sin  is  not  committing  sin.  Not 
to  prevent  evil  is  not  the  same  as  doing  evil. 

We  claim  that  God  is  under  no  manner  of  obligation  to 
keep  men  or  devils  from  sinning.  That,  as  sin  is  their  own 
act,  God  may,  although  it  is  against  His  nature,  for  right- 
eous reasons,  allow  them  to  perform  it. 

Moreover  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  sense  there  could  be 
in  giving  a  law,  if  it  were  made  impossible  to  break  it,  if 
the  creature  had  no  liberty  at  all  to  break  it.  In  that  case 
both  the  precept  and  the  penalty  of  law,  are  equally  absurd. 

God  then  has  a  right  to  permit  the  commission  of  sin.  It 
is  acknowledged  that  sin  is,  in  itself  considered,  infinitely 
contrary  to  God's  nature,  but  it  does  not  therefore  follow 
that  it  may  not  be  the  pleasure  of  God  to  permit  it  for  the 
sake  of  the  good  that  He  shall  bring  out  of  it. 

Commission  is  one  thing.  Permission  is  another  thing. 
Man  commits  sin ;  God  never.  Commission  implies  an  in- 
tention toward  evil.  Permission  implies  an  intention  to- 
ward good. 

As  man  commits  sin,  it  is  contrary  to  God's  will ;  for  men 
act,  in  committing  it,  with  a  view  to  that  which  is  evil. 
But  as  God  permits  it,  it  is  not  contrary  to  God's  will ;  for 
God,  in  permitting  it,  has  respect  to  the  great  good  He  will 
bring  out  of  it.  If  God  regarded  sin  as  man  regards  it, 
when  he  commits  it,  it  would  be  against  His  will,  and  sin, 
and  He  would  deny  Himself ;  but  regarded  as  God  decrees 
to  permit  it,  it  is  not  contrary  to  His  will,  nor  sin,  nor 
does  he  deny  himself.  Take  for  example  the  crucifixion  of 
Christ.  That  was  a  great  sin  and,  as  men  committed  it,  it 
was  exceedingly  heinous  and  hateful  and  provoking  to  God. 
Yet,  on  many  considerations,  and  on  the  whole,  it  was  the 
will  of  God  that  it  should  be  done.  Will  any  man  say  that 
it  was  not  the  will  of  God  that  Christ  should  be  crucified ! 
Acts  iv:28  settles  the  matter.  "For  to  do  whatsoever  Thy 
hand  and  Thy  counsel  determined  before  to  be  done."* 


*See  Jonathan  Edwards,  Decrees  and  Election. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE.  199 

We  do  not  argue  that  God  may  do  evil  that  good  may 
come.  That  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Jesuits ;  and  St.  Paul  says, 
of  men  who  argue  like  that,  their  damnation  is  just. 

What  we  say  is  not  that  God  may  do  evil,  commit  evil, 
that  good  may  come,  but  what  we  do  say  is  that  God  on  the 
whole  may  will  to  permit  evil  to  come  to  pass,  that  greater 
good  may  come.  He  may  decree  the  fall,  if  out  of  that 
there  is  to  come  more  glorious  resurrection.  He  may  allow 
one  world  to  go  to  pieces,  if  out  of  those  pieces  He  shall 
reconstruct  a  better.     Why  not? 

No  doubt  it  is  sin  and  nothing  but  sin  for  any  being  to  do 
evil  that  good  may  come  out  of  it,  but  even  a  creature  might 
will  to  permit  evil  to  come  to  pass,  if  he  were  wise  enough 
to  foresee  and  to  decree  that  good  shall  come  out  of  it,  and 
just  hozv  good  shall  come  out  of  it,  and  more  good  than  in 
any  other  way. 

But  as  a  creature  would  be  out  of  place  in  permitting  sin 
to  occur  where  he  could  prevent  it,  because  it  is  not  his 
province,  because  he  is  not  sovereign,  and  because  he  is 
not  wise  enough,  nor  sufficient  enough  to  render  it  proper 
that  such  a  power  of  permission  should  be  lodged  in  his 
hands,  it  is,  therefore,  forbidden  him,  but  not  because  the 
principle  is  wrong,  but  because  the  prerogative  belongs  to 
God. 

And  what  is  true  in  general  is  true  in  particular.  It  was 
right  in  God  to  permit  the  sin  of  Satan. 

(1.)  Because  Satan  had  ample  powers  not  to  sin — He  ac- 
tually existed  ages  as  a  holy  being. 

(2.)  Because  Satan,  being  created  perfect,  was  in  more 
than  equilibrio;  he  was  weighted  toward  holiness.  He  had 
the  grace  to  stand. 

Suppose  a  balance-rod  on  a  pivot,  one  end  of  which  rests 
on  a  bar.  It  is  made  so  and  placed  so.  The  end  which  rests 
on  the  bar  cannot  fasten  itself  to  the  bar,  so  as  never  to  tilt, 
but  it  can  remain  on  the  bar  and  lean  on  the  bar,  or  it  can 
slide  its  weight  the  other  way  and  to  the  other  end,  and 
tilt  itself  down. 

That  seems  to  be  what  Satan  did.  He  was  made  resting. 
He  did  rest  for  ages.  He  could  have  rested  forever,  but  he 
swung  his  weight  the  other  way.    God  did  not  swing  it. 


200  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

God  took  nothing-  from  him — no  grace,  nor  weight,  nor 
power  that  he  had  ever  had. 

Satan  shifted  himself.  Vanity  was  born  in  him — self 
born.  Conceit  was  born  in  him — self  born.  Imagine  the 
conceit  of  any  creature  trying  to  outrival  God. 

It  was  pure  emeutc — rebellion.  No  one  knows  where  that 
comes  from.  Surely  it  does  not  come  from  God,  for  He  hates 
rebellion  and  does  not  care  to  have  any  one  rebel  against 
Him.  The  sin  was  Satan's  own.  God  had  nothing  to  do 
with  it — either  to  produce  it,  or  suggest  it,  or  create  a  weak- 
ness out  of  which  it  should  spring.  It  seems  to  be  a  neces- 
sity of  free-will,  and  Satan  unfallen  had  a  free-will,  that  it 
should  be  able  to  originate  evil.  One  thing  the  creature  can 
create  and  God  cannot,  and  that  thing  is  sin.  The  creature 
cannot  make  life,  nor  add  to  grace,  but  he  can  lose,  spend 
away  and  destroy. 

Satan  was  able  and  showed  himself  able  to  stand,  and 
might  have  stood  forever,  but  he  elected  to  fall.  He  did  it 
with  his  eyes  open — as  much  so  as  they  ever  could  have  been 
open.  He  created  his  sin  out  of  nothing,  and  for  no  cause 
whatever,  ungratefully  out,  as  we  may  say,  of  whole  cloth. 

God  simply  did  not  interfere.  He  determined  to  leave 
Satan  to  himself  to  prove  him — to  see  what  he  would  do, 
and  he  fell.  God  allowed  him  to  fall,  and  He  had  a  right 
to  allow  him  to  fall,  nor  could  the  devil  charge, 

"With  light  sufficient  and  left  free 
His   wilful   suicide   on    God's   decree." 

God  permitted  Satan  to  sin,  and  He  was  right  in  doing  it ; 
but,  if  Satan,  then  any  one. 

God  may  permit  wicked  men  to  sin.  He  may  leave  Shimei 
to  curse  David.  He  may  leave  Pharaoh  to  harden  his  heart. 
He  may  leave  Balaam  to  deceive  himself  and  Saul  to  the 
wo;  kings  of  an  evil  spirit.  He  may,  when  men  and  women 
think  they  are  strongest,  leave  them  to  themselves.  The 
d:"'il  fell  just  at  the  moment  when  he  thought  he  was 
strongest.  Just  at  the  moment  when  he  said,  "Perfect  in 
wisdom,  perfect  in  beauty !  I  know  it  all.  I  cannot  be 
tempted."  Oh !  what  a  commentary  on  the  monition.  "Let 
him  that  thinketh  he  standeth,  take  heed  lest  he  fall !" 


THE  D0CTR1KES   OF   GRACE.  201 

II.  If  it  be  right  for  God  to  permit  sin  then  it  is  right  for 
Him  to  pass  by  sinners  and  to  punish  sin. 

Preterition,  passing  by,  is  simply  leaving  angels,  men  and 
sinners  to  themselves. 

God  does  this.  He  left  Satan  to  himself.  He  left  Adam 
to  himself.  He  left  Hezekiah,  in  the  matter  of  the  am- 
bassadors, to  himself.  2  Chron.  xxxii:3i.  "God  left  him  to 
try  him  that  He  might  know  all  that  was  in  his  heart."  God 
also  left  Ephraim.  "Ephraim  is  joined  to  his  idols,  let 
him  alone," — let  him  alone! 

Preterition — a  passing  by,  is  necessarily  involved  in  elec- 
tion. If  it  be  true,  as  the  Bible  asserts,  that  God,  out  of 
His  mere  good  pleasure,  chooses  some  to  everlasting  life, 
it,  of  course,  follows  that  He  passes  by  others — i.  e.,  does 
not  choose  them. 

But  this  also  is  just  as  strongly  asserted.  "One  shall  be 
taken  and  another  left."  "Therefore  hath  He  mercy  on 
whom  He  will  have  mercy,  and  whom  He  will  He  hard- 
ened!." And  Samuel  said,  "The  Lord  hath  not  chosen  this, 
neither  hath  the  Lord  chosen  this."  And  Samuel  said  unto 
Jesse,  "The  Lord  hath  not  chosen  these."  "I  speak  not  of 
all,"  said  our  Saviour,  "I  know  whom  I  have  chosen.  Ye  be- 
lieve not  because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep." 

Still  again  the  illustrations  employed  by  St.  Paul  in  our 
chapter  oblige  the  same  conclusion.  "The  potter  out  of  the 
same  lump  of  clay  makes  one  vessel  to  honor  and  another 
to  dishonor."  It  would  destroy  the  very  point  of  the  com- 
parison to  say  that  the  reason  of  this  choice  was  not  the 
free-will  of  the  Potter  but  a  difference  in  the  clay.  In  that 
case  the  clay  would  not  be  the  same  clay — would  not  be  the 
same  uniform  mass. 

It  would  involve  a  contradiction  to  say  that  Esau  was 
passed  by  because  he  was  worse  than  Jacob.  The  whole 
story  goes  to  show  that  he  was  not  worse.  The  very  point 
made  by  the  apostles  is  the  sovereignty  of  the  choice. 

Finally,  our  Saviour  makes  perfectly  clear  what  is  the 
truth  on  this  subject.  There  is  no  better  preacher  than 
Christ,  and  He  refers  the  hiding  of  these  things  from  the 
wise  and  prudent,  not  to  the  wise  and  prudent  themselves, 
but  to  the  good  pleasure  of  God.  "Even  so,  Father,  for 
so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy  sight." 


202  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

But  if  it  is  right  for  God  to  pass  by  sinners  and  permit 
them  to  sin,  then  it  is  right  to  punish  them  for  sin  committed. 

i.  Because  sin,  as  sin,  deserves  to  be  punished.  No  mat- 
ter where  found  in  the  universe,  nor  how  it  came  about,  sin 
deserves  to  be  punished.     Its  wages,  its  desert,  is  death. 

2.  God  has  a  right  to  punish  sin  because  he  had  no  hand 
in  it.  He  never  abetted  it.  He  never  connived  at  it.  He 
was  aloof  from  it.  He  had  no  more  to  do  with  Satan's  sin 
than  Gabriel  had.  He  simply  found  it.  Then  He  must 
punish  it. 

3.  He  must  punish  it  on  His  own  account.  Because  sin 
insults  him;  because  it  is  rank  rebellion  against  Him;  be- 
cause it  aims  to  annihilate  Him ;  because  it  must  die  the 
death,  or  God. 

4.  God  must  punish  sin  because  His  Law  compels  it. 
Because  His  law  is  holy  and  forbids  sin.  Because  His  law 
threatens  wrath  on  evil  doers  and  declares,  "The  soul  that 
sinneth  it  shall  die."     But 

III.  If  it  be  right  for  God  to  permit  sin,  and  to  pass  by 
sinners — leave  them  to  sin  and  then  punish  sin,  why  then, 
and  here  is  the  practical  point  of  the  sermon, — the  exemp- 
tion of  any  sinner  from  punishment  is  an  act  of  free  grace. 

You  are  not  to  be  saved,  my  friend,  for  any  merit,  any 
more  than  the  devil  to-day,  were  he  to  be  saved,  would  be 
saved  for  merit.  You  will  have  to  be  saved,  if  saved  at  all, 
just  as  the  devil  would  be  saved — a  lost  case. 

You  will  have  to  give  up  and  own  up  that  your  situation 
is  desperate,  that  God  might  justly  leave  you  to  perish,  that 
the  only  wonder  is  that  you  have  not  already  perished — that 
you  are  not,  this  moment,  in  hell.    Ah !  yes, 

"On  floods  of  liquid  brimstone  tossed 
.    Forever !  Oh,  forever  lost !" 

You  will  have  to  give  up  that  you  are  lost,  helpless — in 
the  hands  of  God,  at  His  disposal — that  it  would  be  per- 
fectly right  for  Him  to  drop  you,  this  moment,  into  hell, 
and  that  if  He  does  not  do  this,  and  still  gives  you  a  chance, 
an  opportunity  to  hear  the  Gospel  welcome,  and  to  run 
and  fly  to  Jesus,  it  is  only  of  free  grace. 

You  will  have  to  give  up  that  you  can  do  nothing,  if  God 
shall  withdraw  His  Spirit;  and  that  while  He  is  drawing 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  203 

you  by  His  Spirit,  it  is  wretched  business  on  your  part,  to 
cavil,  question,  and  resist  His  Spirit — close  your  eyes  to 
your  last  hope,  and  your  ears  to  an  offer,  soon,  if  rejected, 
to  be  heard  no  more  on  earth,  nor  in  the  gloomy  vaults  of 
hell.    Oh,  never,  never  more ! 

From  this  whole  subject,  let  us  learn,  my  brethren : 

1.  There  is  no  use  in  fighting  against  God.  "Who  would 
set  the  briers  and  thorns  against  me  in  battle?  I  would  go 
through  them,  I  would  burn  them  altogether." 

2.  True  submission  to  God's  sovereignty  is  true  con- 
version, and  men  who  fight  election  and  resist  God's  will 
are  not  converted,  and  will  probably  not  be. 

3.  Faith,  or  a  simple  trust  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  the  straight 
road  out  of  all  difficulties,  perplexities,  and  worries  as  to 
the  sovereignty  of  God,  since,  anyhow,  we  lie  at  His  foot- 
stool and  there  is  nothing  else  to  do  but  take  the  remedy 
and  the  escape  He  offers: 

"Bow  the  knee  and  kiss  the  son, 
Come   and    welcome    sinner,    come," 

is  the  short  cut  of  the  Gospel. 

Certain  other  most  practical  thoughts  flow  out  of  this 
subject,  and 

1.  All  rebellions,  all  checks,  all  hindrances,  all  dissensions, 
all  evils  in  the  Church  are  by  God's  permission,  and  by  the 
ordering  of  God.  God  permitted  and  ordered  Satan's 
emeute,  Miriam's  sedition,  Korah's  rebellion,  and  the  action 
of  the  spies.  Impatience  with  these  things  is  impatience 
with  God.  Unbelief  on  account  of  these  things  is  dishonor- 
ing to  God.  It  must  needs  be  that  offences  come,  but  God 
will  take  care  of  His  kingdom. 

2.  Wilfulness,  insubordination  grows  out  of  vanity  and 
fancied  self  interest,  and  is  sure  to  meet  its  doom.  Satan 
has  run  a  long  course  and  posed  as  an  angel  of  light  in  his 
deception,  but  the  end  of  Satan  is  sure. 

3.  Cultivate  the  opposite  spirit.  Suppose  Satan  had  been 
willing  to  sink  self  in  the  glory  of  God,  and  take  his 
proper  place  and  yield  to  Christ,  and  push  Christ's  king- 
dom ?    Why  then  he  would  never  have  been  Satan  at  all. 

4.  Dare  not  to  say :  "I  am  strong,  self-sufficient.  I  shall 
not  sin.     I  shall  not  fall !"     Resolve  nothing,  in  your  own 


204  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

strength.  There  is  nothing  God  hates  as  He  does  a  re- 
solution made  in  our  own  strength,  because  it  sets  Him  at 
naught  and  defies  Him.  If  God  leave  you,  you  will  sin — 
you  will  fall.     Pray  God  not  to  leave  you — to  keep  you. 

5.  Dare  not  to  say :  "I  sometime  shall  sin.  Oh !  I  know 
I  shall  fall.  I  have  battled  and  battled  against  a  particular 
sin,  but  I  know  I  shall  one  day  commit  it."  Of  course  you 
will  commit  it,  if  you  say  you  will  commit  it,  and  if  left  to 
yourself;  but  pray  God  not  to  leave  you,  and  believe  with 
all  your  heart  that  God,  for  Christ's  sake,  will  not  leave 
you.  Never  cast  away  your  confidence.  Remember  that 
self-reprobation  is  certain  reprobation.  Saying  that  I  am 
one  of  the  non-elect  makes  non-election  sure. 

6.  Pray  that  God  may  not  pass  you  by,  say  it  and  sing  it, 

"Pass  me  not,  oh  gracious  Father, 

Sinful  tho'  my  heart  may  be, 
Thou  mights 't  leave  me  but  the  rather 

Let  Thy  mercy  fall  on  me. 

"Pass  me  not,  oh  tender  Saviour, 

Let  me  love  and  cling  to  Thee, 
I  am  longing  for  Thy  favor, 

Whilst  Thou  art  calling,  Oh  call  me. 

"Pass  me  not,  oh  mighty  Spirit, 

Thou  canst  make  the  blind  to  see, 
Witnesser  of  Jesus'  merit, 

Speak  the  word  of  power  to  me. 

"Pass  me  not,  Thy  lost  one  bringing, 

Bind  my  heart,  oh  Lord,  to  Thee 
While  the  streams  of  life  are  springing, 

Blessing  others,  oh  bless  me." 

7.  Wonder !  O  wonder  that  you  are  not  already  passed  by. 
Oh  what  a  wonder !  How  you  have  resisted,  held  out, 
cavilled,  grieved  the  Spirit,  provoked  God.  Spared  yet — 
what  a  wonder ! 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  205 

"Depth  of  mercy  can  there  be, 

Mercy  still  reserved  for  me, 
Can  my  God  His  wrath   forbear, 

Me,  the  chief  of  sinners,  spare. 

"I  have  long  withstood  His  grace, 

Long  provoked  Him  to  His  face, 
Would  not  listen  to  His  calls. 

Grieved  Him  by  a  thousand  falls. 

"Kindled  His  relentings  are, 

Me,  He  now  delights  to  spare. 
Cries,  how  can  I  give  thee  up, 

Let's  the  lifted  thunder  drop. 

"There,  for  me  the  Saviour  stands, 

Shows  His  wounds,  and  spreads  His  hands, 

God  is  love  I  know,  I  feel, 
Jesus  weeps,  He  weeps  and  loves  me  still." 

8.  And  finally.  Avoid  most  sedulously  things  which  vou 
have  reason  to  believe  will  cause  God  to  withdraw  from 
you. 

Resist  not  the  Spirit.  Quench  not  the  Spirit.  It  is  often 
some  secret  sin,  some  worldly  lust,  which  keeps  a  man  from 
coming  to  Christ  and  casting  himself,  a  lost  sinner,  on 
Christ  the  lost  sinner's  Saviour. 


2o6  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


REPROBATION.* 


"What  if  God,  willing  to  show  His  wrath,  and  to  make  His 
power  known,  endured  with  much  long-suffering  the  vessels  of 
wrath  fitted  to  destruction?" — Rom.  iv  :22. 

He  who  declares  the  whole  counsel  of  God  takes  care  to 
divide  it,  from  the  fountain-head,  into  the  two  grand  and 
all-inclusive  branches  of  election  and  reprobation.  Indeed, 
the  private  reader  of  the  Scriptures,  truly  enlightened  and 
led  into  somewhat  deeper  communion  with  the  mind  of  the 
Spirit,  soon  comes  to  discover  for  himself  these  two  streams 
of  the  divine  purpose  flowing  side  by  side  from  Genesis  to 
the  Revelation,  and  terminating,  on  the  one  hand,  in  the 
bestowment  of  everlasting  mercies  upon  the  chosen  seed  of 
the  woman ;  on  the  other,  in  the  infliction  of  everlasting 
miseries  upon  the  rejected  seed  of  the  serpent. 

Since,  then,  the  Bible  is  occupied  with  nothing  else  than 
the  exhibition,  development,  and  application  of  the  doctrine 
of  grace,  or  of  the  divine  decrees  with  reference  to  the  hu- 
man creature,  he  who  grapples  with,  searches  out,  and  ex- 
pounds this  doctrine  most  clearly,  most  earnestly,  most 
affectionately,  is  the  teacher  who  shows  himself  most  "ap- 
proved unto  God" — "a  workman  that  needeth  not  to  be 
ashamed,  rightly  dividing  the  word  of  truth ;"  while  he  who 
ignores,  obscures,  or  timidly  touches  upon  this  doctrine 
shows  himself  "unskilful  in  the  word  of  righteousness" — a 
man  more  ready  to  sacrifice  the  honor  of  God  than  to  lose 
the  vapid  and  transitory  honor  which  is  obtained  by  those 
who  court  the  adulation  of  "this  present  evil  world." 

But  some  object  to  the  preaching  of  predestination  with 
vividness  and  power.  They  tell  us  that  it  does  no  good, 
that  it  is  calculated  rather  to  do  great  harm.  To  such 
objectors,  we  are  not  careful  to  frame  a  satisfactory  reply. 

*Reference  to  this  sermon  is  made  in  Lange's  Commentary  on 
the  Romans.    Chap,  ix,  page  327. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  207 

Having  received  a  supernatural  Gospel,  couched  in  ex- 
plicit statements  of  fact,  our  business  is  to  preach  that 
Gospel  in  the  enunciation  of  the  same  explicit  state- 
ments. We  are  not  at  liberty,  had  we  the  desire,  (and 
we  trust  in  God  that  we  have  not,)  either  to  alter,  adulter- 
ate, soften,  or  gloss  over  a  single  one  of  the  clear  and 
luminous  terms  which  God  the  Holy  Ghost  has  selected  to 
become  the  vehicles  of  the  testimony  of  truth.  Those,  then, 
who  object  to  the  preaching,  object  to  the  very  words  of 
God,  and  so  make  God  a  liar.  Their  controversy,  there- 
fore, is  not  with  men,  but  with  God ;  and  to  Him  we 
can  well  afford  to  leave  them,  assured  that,  with  a  whole 
eternity  at  His  disposal,  He  will  find  no  great  difficulty 
in  vindicating  Himself  before  a  self-erected  tribunal  of 
worms.  If,  however,  any  of  the  true  children  of  God  are 
desirous  to  learn  why  we  are  so  strenuous  and  so  constant 
in  affirming  the  truth  of  an  eternal  predestination,  it  be- 
comes a  grateful  task,  on  our  part,  to  assign  several  con- 
vincing and   most   consolatory   reasons. 

1.  Because,  in  the  preaching  of  this  truth,  God  is  most 
of  all  exalted,  vindicated,  glorified.  He  is  thus,  as  in  a  lucid 
mirror,  seen  to  be  no  pasteboard  monarch — no  nominal, 
fictitious  king,  but  to  be  in  actuality  and  fact  the  invincible 
sovereign,  potentate,  and  autocrat  of  the  vast  universe, 
whose  glory  floods  it  and  whose  will  is  instantaneous,  in- 
disputable, independent,  and  inviolable  law. 

2.  Because  this  doctrine,  by  tracing  the  love  of  God  to 
its  origin  in  His  mere  good  pleasure,  puts  that  love  at 
once  upon  a  foreign  and  so  an  immutable  basis — upon  a 
basis  anterior  to  the  existence  of  its  object,  nay,  anterior 
to  the  existence  of  creation  itself,  and  thus  opens  a  door 
for  that  joyous  surprisal,  that  adoring  gratitude,  that  wist- 
ful and  expectant  wonder  on  the  part  of  the  creature,  which 
make  the  sum  of  all  blessedness,  and  which,  finding  their 
spring  in  the  mysterious  remoteness  of  an  eternal  past, 
flow  on  in  rising  and  immeasurable  streams  of  light,  of 
life,  of  peace,  of  ecstasy,  to  gulf  themselves  for  ever  in 
the  unknown  glories  of  eternities  to  come.  It  is  an  in- 
telligent reception  of  the  apostolic  assurance,  "In  love  hav- 
ing predestinated  us.''  which  causes  the  elect  of  God  to  cry: 


208  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"What  was  there  in  us  that  could  merit  esteem, 

Or  give  the  Creator  delight? 
'Twas  even  so.  Father,  we  ever  must  sing, 

Because  it  seemed  good  in  Thy  sight. 
"  'Twas  all  of  Thy  grace  we  were  brought  to  obey 

While  others  were  suffered  to  go 
The  road  which  by  nature  we  chose  as  our  way, 

Which  leads  to  the  regions  of  woe." 

3.  We  preach  predestination,  because  this  doctrine,  by 
stripping  the  last  shred  of  merit  and  snatching  the  last 
atom  of  ability  from  fallen  man,  refers  salvation — in  con- 
ception as  in  birth,  in  source  as  in  stream,  in  bud  as  in 
flower,  in  seed  as  in  fruit — to  the  simple  option  of  Jehovah's 
will,  and  makes  even  the  purpose  of  election  itself  to 
stand,  not  of  works  not  of  foreseen  belief,  or  unbelief,  but 
"of  Him"  alone  "that  calleth,''  and  who  "hath  mercy  on 
whom  He  will  have  mercy,"  and  "hardeneth"  whom  He  will. 
The  doctrine  of  predestination,  therefore — of  absolute,  free, 
unconditional  predestination — is  brought  in  with  the  specific 
design  of  removing  every  fond  and  fancied  qualification 
on  the  part  of  sinners — of  applying  the  axe  to  the  very 
root  of  nature's  tree — and  of  "giving  God  His  own/" 
Empty,  naked,  helpless,  and  self-despairing  souls,  who  have 
fled  for  refuge  to  the  solitary  shelter  of  redeeming  blood, 
are  thus  comforted,  encouraged,  and  built  up  on  their  "most 
holy  faith,"  while  noisy,  pretentious,  boastful,  and  self- 
deluded  hypocrites,  of  whom  the  Church  in  prosperous 
times  is  full,  are  ploughed  up  as  cumberers  of  the  ground 
and  cast  out  as  refuse  weeds  from  the  garden  of  the  Lord. 

4.  The  doctrine  of  predestination  is  of  especial  value  in 
bringing  believers  to  a  true  knowledge  and  delightful  en- 
joyment of  their  present  complete  standing  and  security 
in  Jesus  Christ,  and  consequent  instalment  in  all  the  bless- 
ings of  the  covenant  of  grace.  For,  when  once  assured 
of  their  eternal  election  in  Christ  Jesus,  nothing  is 
more  absolutely  certain  than  that  they  shall  ulti- 
mately reach  that  glory  to  which  in  free  love  they 
have  already  been  predestined.  Nor  is  there  any 
reason  why  such  an  assurance  should  be  regarded  as  some- 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  209 

thing  absurd,  fanatical,  marvellous,  or  even  strange;  for 
to  stand  in  such  an  assurance  is  to  occupy  the  only  position 
proper  for  and  therefore  worthy  of  a  child  of  God.  Every 
man  who  has  been  called  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  ought 
at  once  to  conclude  that  he  has  been  elected.  For  God  the 
Holy  Ghost  calls  none  save  those  who  have  been  redeemed 
by  God  the  Son;  and  God  the  Son  redeems  none  but  those 
who  have  been  elected  by  God  the  Father.  He,  therefore, 
who  in  the  golden  letter  of  his  calling,  resplendent  be- 
neath the  crimson  surface  o'f  the  blood  of  Christ,  spells 
out  the  truth  of  his  election,  has  a  hope  "which  maketh 
not  ashamed."  being  witnessed  by  the  love  of  God  shed 
abundantly  abroad  in  his  heart  "by  the  Holy  Ghost  which 
is   given   unto  us." 

5.  The  doctrine  of  predestination  is  to  be  preached  be- 
cause it  affords  the  steadiest  and  most  powerful  motive 
to  all  good  works.  An  assurance  of  our  eternal  predestina- 
tion to  glory  brings  the  soul  into  a  condition  of  moral 
equipoise — into  that  state  of  high,  unbroken  spiritual  re- 
pose which  is  the  necessary  preparative  for  all  true  and 
fruitful  service.  Rest,  is  the  secret  of  power,  and  the  more 
profound  the  soul's  rest  in  God,  the  more  steady  and 
irresistible  will  be  the  energy.  It  has  been  said  that  in- 
telligent phlegmatics  rule  the  world.  This  is  only  another 
way  of  stating  the  obvious  truth  that  calmness  and  com- 
posure are  the  essential  prerequisites  to  all  vast  and  com- 
plicated enterprises.  This  holds  good  in  the  domain  of 
spiritual  as  in  that  of  natural  affairs.  The  man  who  is 
working  in  order  to  be  saved  is  anxious,  nervous  hesitat- 
ing inefficient.  When  brought  to  the  test  of  a  great  princi- 
ple, he  lacks  courage,  decision,  anvil-like  endurance.  He, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  is  working  because  already  saved,  be- 
cause predestined  to  a  glorious  career  for  God,  works, 
it  may  be  with  less  ostentatious  bustle,  but  with  a  force 
ever  concentrating,  ever  accelerating  and  augmenting,  till 
it  reaches  an  intensity  and  volume  which  suggest  some- 
thing almost  if  not  altogether  superhuman.  The  idea  of 
destiny  involves  the  idea  of  duty;  and  when  these  two 
ideas  coalesce  in  one  subject,  the  effect  is  truly  stupendous. 
This  explains,  on  natural  principles,  the  career  of  Moham- 
med and  of  Napoleon.     It  explains  on  spiritual  principles, 


210  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  career  of  St.  Paul,  of  Augustine,  of  Calvin,  and  of 
Knox.  Predestinarians,  whether  on  the  platform  of  nature 
or  of  grace,  are  invariably  the  foremost  winners  of  the 
crown  of  life. 

6.  Predestination  is  to  be  preached,  because  it  is  the 
tremendous  sledge-hammer  wielded  by  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
knocking  the  last  prop  from  under  the  sinner  who  is  vainly 
striving  to  find  some  ground  of  encouragement  within  him- 
self. So  long  as  a  man  hopes  something  good  of  himself, 
he  remains  the  open  enemy  of  Jesus'  cross.  So  long  as  a 
man  is  trusting  to  some  future  preparation  to  be  made  by 
himself,  or  to  be  wrought  within  him  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
he  remains  in  danger  of  eternal  fire.  But  when  the  doctrine 
of  election  comes  to  such  a  man,  it  declares  plainly,  that  it 
is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  even  if  he  had  the  will;  nor  of 
him  that  runneth,  even  if  he  had  the  earnestness ;  but  of 
God  alone,  who  showeth  mercy.  When  the  doctrine  of  elec- 
tion comes,  it  teaches  that  the  laborious  moralist — the  self- 
complacent  penitent — "hath  not  obtained  that  which  he 
seeketh  for,  but  the  election  hath  obtained  it  and  the  rest 
were  blinded."  The  introduction  of  this  doctrine,  therefore, 
is  the  prelude  to  the  sinner's  utter  self-discouragement  and 
self-despair.  It  is  the  prelude  also  to  the  sinner's  complete 
cessation  from  his  own  works  as  useless,  and  to  his  casting 
of  himself  over,  as  lost,  and  wretched,  and  helpless,  upon 
the  foreign  yet  solid  and  sufficient  and  imperishable,  because 
divine,  foundation  of  righteousness,  devoid  of  human  works. 
Such  a  sinner,  bereaved  of  every  other  hope,  lays  hold,  at 
once,  upon  the  dying  Son  of  God.    He  cries  : 

"A  guilty,  weak,  and  helpless  worm, 

On  Thy  kind  arms  I  fall ; 
Be  Thou  my  strength  and  righteousness, 

My  Jesus  and  my  All." 

Such  being  some  of  the  substantial  reasons  why  the  doc- 
trine of  predestination  should  be  preached,  I  purpose,  by 
the  help  of  God,  to  present  the  negative  side  of  it  to-day. 
And  if  the  rolling  forth  of  the  high  and  holy  ''wheel"  be  as 
in  Ezekiel's  sight,  dreadful,  let  us  reflect  that  this  very 
dreadfulness  is  itself  worthy  of  all  admiration,  since  it  forms 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE.  211 

the  background  against  which  are  conspicuously  displayed 
the  adorable  and  unvaikd  splendors  of  that  sovereign  God, 
of  whom  and  through  whom  and  to  whom  are  all  things; 
to  whom  be  edorv  for  ever.    Amen. 


Our  text  gives  us  for  a  theme — The  Divine  Forbear- 
ance— the  Objects  on  which  it  terminates — its  Char- 
acter, and  the  Reasons  of  its  manifestation. 

I.  The  Objects  of  the  divine  forbearance — "vessels  of 
wrath,  fitted  to  destruction."  If  Election  be  true,  Reproba- 
tion is  true.  If  God  does  not  elect  then  He  leaves.  Rom. 
xi  \y.  "The  election  hath  obtained  it,  and  the  rest  were 
blinded."  Some  sinners  He  allows  to  go  on  in  their  sins. 
To  others  He  shows  a  gratuitous  mercy. 

1.  Reprobated  men  are  vessels.  A  vessel  is  something 
which  owes  its  workmanship  to  the  skill  and  pleasure  of 
another.  In  this  sense  those  who  will  finally  be  lost  are 
properly  spoken  of  as  vessels.  They  owe  their  existence 
to  the  hand  and  will  of  God.  "'The  Lord  hath  made  all 
things  for  Himself — yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of 
evil."  "God  is  the  Creator  of  the  wicked,  although  not  of 
their  wickedness ;  He  is  the  Author  of  their  being,  although 
not  the  Infuser  of  their  sin." 

A  truth  still  more  solemn  to  contemplate  is  included  here. 
What  the  wicked  man  is  as  a  vessel,  in  other  words,  the  de- 
gree of  degradation  and  of  shame  which  he  inevitably 
reaches,  is  determined  beforehand,  by  the  uninfluenced  and 
sovereign  will  of  God.  "Hath  not  the  potter  power  over  the 
clay,  to  make  one  vessel  to  honor  and  another  to  dishonor?" 
Over  each  reprobated  man  God  holds  and  exercises  an  ab- 
solute and  invincible  dominion.  The  degree  of  sinful  excess 
to  which  such  a  man  shall  run  is  fixed  by  God  writh  as  perfect 
a  precision  as  is  the  water-mark  of  ocean.  To  that  degree 
the  wicked  man  shall  reach;  beyond  it  he  cannot  go.  The 
voice  of  Omnipotence  opens  or  shuts  a  sluice  gate  upon  all 
human  wickedness,  saying,  "Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  but 
no  further ;  and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed." 

But,  again,  a  vessel  is  not  an  independent  agent,  but  a 
dependent  receiver.     It  can  do  nothing  against  the  hand 


212  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

that  fashions  it  to  this  shape,  or  that  shape,  but  is  the  passive 
subject  of  a  superior  power. 

In  this  sense  likewise  are  reprobated  men  called  vessels ; 
because,  however  actively,  voluntarily,  and  spontaneously 
wicked,  they  are  always  so  governed  and  overruled  in  their 
w  ickedness  as  to  accomplish  the  precise  object  which  from 
the  beginning  God  has  had  in  view,  namely,  the  more  per- 
fect illustration  of  His  glory.  The  reprobate,  therefore,  as 
well  as  the  elect,  are  entirely  and  in  all  respects  dependent 
upon  the  naked  will  of  God.  "In  Him  they  live  and  are 
moved  Kiv6v/.ieSa  and  have  their  being."  In  company  with 
devils  their  motions  are  controlled  in  this  direction  or  in  that, 
as  truly  as  are  those  of  saints  and  angels.  Let  not  wicked 
men,  therefore,  puffed  up  with  a  vain-glorious  pride, 
imagine  that  by  their  sins  they  are  working  vast  injury  to 
the  government  of  God  and  ingulfing  the  Almighty  Himself 
in  an  unassuageable  sorrow.  In  all  that  they  do,  however 
high  they  swell  in  proud  rebellion,  they  are  but  the  uncon- 
scious instruments  of  an  everlasting  purpose.  Even  the  men 
who  crucified  the  Lord  Jesus,  "both  Herod  and  Pontius  Fil- 
iate, with  the  Gentiles  and  the  people  of  Israel"  are  said  to 
have  been  gathered  together  against  God's  "Holy  Child," 
"for  to  do  whatsoever  His  hand  and  His  counsel  deter- 
mined before  to  be  done."  So  far,  then,  are  wicked  sinners 
from  possessing  any  power  to  break  over  or  to  frustrate  the 
decrees  of  God  that  the  Psalmist  emphasizes  the  contrary 
truth — "Surely  the  wrath  of  man  shall  praise  Thee,  and  the 
remainder  of  wrath  Thou  wilt  restrain." 

To  this  view  it  is  possible  that  some  may  object,  saying, 
"Why  doth  He  yet  find  fault,  for  who  hath  resisted  His 
will?"  "God's  will  is  accomplished  in  any  event;  why  then 
does  God  take  vengeance?" 

Such  an  objection,  serves  but  to  confirm  what  has  already 
been  advanced ;  for  its  very  statement  becomes  an  open 
proof  that  our  doctrine  is  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul  himself. 
To  it  therefore  we  may  make  reply  in  the  apostolic  words, 
"Nay,  but  O  man,  who  art  thou  that  repliest  against  God? 
Shall  the  thing  formed  say  of  Him  that  formed  it.  Why 
hast  Thou  made  me  thus?  Hath  not  the  potter  power  over 
the  clav,  of  the  same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  to  honor  and 
another  to  dishonor?" 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  213 

There  is  one  other  thought  concerning  these  reprobated 
vessels.  They  are  of  clay.  This  argues  the  impurity  of  their 
nature.  Reprobated  man  is  in  himself  and  of  himself  im- 
pure. Clay  is  not  an  original  substance.  It  is  the  result  of 
decomposition.  It  is  the  effect  of  a  crumbling  and  rotting 
of  the  primeval  rock.  We  have  in  the  clay  therefore  an 
admirable  emblem  of  the  reprobated  sinner  in  the  hands  of 
God.  In  his  original  rock — that  is,  in  Adam — he  was  holy ; 
God  made  man  upright ;  but  in  his  fallen  clay  he  is  unholy. 
His  nature  is  one  entire  pravity  when  God  begins  to  deal 
with  it.  It  is  as  if  a  potter  should  seize  upon  some  existing 
putrid  mass  and  throw  it  on  his  wheel.  At  each  revolution 
of  the  wheel,  beneath  the  potter's  hand  this  mass  takes  shape 
and  outline.  Its  final  pattern  is  the  perfect  reproduction  of 
a  plan  long  before  matured  within  the  potter's  brain.  It  is 
therefore  what  the  potter  from  the  first  designed  it  should 
be ;  but  the  vileness  and  offensiveness  of  the  material  remain 
just  what  the  potter  found  them.  They  are  unchanged.  The 
badness  of  the  substance  must  therefore  be  charged  upon 
the  substance ;  but  the  glory  displayed  in  the  result  must  be 
referred  to  the  artist's  solitary  brain  and  hand." 

In  order  to  show  the  more  conclusively  that  the  difference 
between  the  elect  and  the  reprobate  is  not  to  be  accounted 
for  upon  the  supposition  that  God  takes  an  innocent  crea- 
ture, or  an  indifferent  creature,  and  makes  him  bad, 
we  are  taught  that  the  vessels  of  honor  and  dishonor  are 
made  of  the  same  lump.  The  heavenly  Potter  takes  de- 
praved humanity  as  such.  He  lays  it  on  His  table.  He 
seizes  the  knife  of  double-edged  predestination  and  severs 
the  common  lump  into  two  portions.  The  one  He  leaves  un- 
changed and  turns  it  out  a  vessel  of  dishonor.  The  other 
He  changes,  works  anew,  cleanses,  clarifies,  and  forms 
therefrom  the  crystal  vessels  of  His  grace. 

God.  then,  is  in  no  sense  the  author  of  sin.     To  assert 


*This  explanation  is  given  because,  true  in  itself,  it  best  sub- 
serves the  purpose  of  the  present  discourse.  It  is  not  intended  for 
one  moment,  however,  to  obscure,  still  less  to  trench  upon,  higher 
and  more  absolute  views  of  divine  sovereignty  springing  from  the 
germinal  truth  that  redemption  was  in  purpose  anterior  to  crea- 
tion ;  that  the  second  Adam  was  set  up  from  everlasting  before  the 
cloudless  vision  of  the  Holy  One  as  the  "preeminent  and  all-con- 
taining object  of  His  counsel." 


214  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

this  is  not  only  to  utter  the  language  of  blasphemy,  but  of 
sheer  self-contradiction.  In  dealing  with  the  sinful  lump, 
God  deals  with  what  has  already  been  condemned  in  fallen 
Adam.  Finding  the  will  of  man  evil — not  creating  it  so 
but  leaving  it  so,  to  be  carried  along  by  its  own  self  impul- 
sion— He  turns  it  hither  or  thither,  as  one  by  building  a  dam 
might  turn  a  poisonous  stream  in  one  direction  or  in  an- 
other, not  changing  the  quality  of  the  stream  which  always 
remains  corrupt  and  malarious,  but  overruling  and  obliging 
its  very  corruption  to  work  out  his  purpose ;  or  as  one  might 
use  a  broken  edged  axe  in  shaping  a  timber,  or  play  on  a 
harp  the  strings  of  which  are  out  of  tune  and  discordant. 
The  shaping  of  the  course  of  the  wicked  is  God's,  but  the 
wickedness,  the  broken  edge,  and  the  discord  are  his  own. 
The  wicked  man  has  no  notion  of  serving  God's  purpose  in 
what  he  is  doing,  but  only  of  serving  himself  and  his  lusts, 
but  God  overrules  and  serves  Himself  of  his  very  sin.  A 
text  in  point  is  Isa.  x:5,  "O,  Assyrian,  the  rod  of  mine  anger 
and  the  staff  in  their  hand  is  mine  indignation — Howbeit 
he  meaneth  not  so,  neither  doth  his  heart  think  so,  but  it  is 
in  his  heart  to  destroy."  Another  text  already  quoted  is 
''The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  Himself,  yea,  even  the 
wicked  for  the  day  of  evil."  Prov.  xvi  14.  Thus  in  the  case 
of  one  man  He  shapes  a  vessel  of  dishonor.  In  the  case  of 
another,  glory  to  His  name,  He  does  a  double  work  of 
free,  unmingled  grace ;  first  creating  a  new  nature,  and  sec- 
ondly moulding  this  new  nature  after  the  faultless  image 
of  His  Son.  The  clay,  then,  in  itself  designates  complete 
corruption,  total  putrescence.  It  is  a  lapsed  lump,  absolutely 
and  remedilessly  vile. 

2.  The  second  truth  taught  in  the  description  of  the  ob- 
jects of  the  divine  forbearance  is  that,  sinners  as  they  are, 
they  are  vessels  "Of  wrath" — or  vessels  devoted  to 
wrath. 

The  fact  that  certain  wicked  men  are  thus  devoted  is 
abundantly  clear,  not  only  from  this,  but  from  many  similar 
passages  of  Scripture.  "The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for 
Plimself,  yea  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of  evil."  "Have 
ye  not  asked  them  by  the  way,  and  do  ye  not  know  their 
tokens,  that  the  wicked  is  reserved  to  the  day  of  destruction? 
They  shall  be  brought  forth  to  the  day  of  wrath."     "This 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  215 

is  the  portion  of  a  wicked  man  from  God,  and  the  heritage 
appointed  unto  him  by  God." 

Since  fallen  man,  immersed  in  sin  by  the  apostatizing  act 
of  Adam,  has  no  whit  of  claim  upon  God's  saving  mercy, 
it  is  nothing  more  than  right  that  this  fact  should  be  made 
evident,  yea,  that  it  should  be  vividly  and  illustriously  set 
forth.  And  God  in  His  wisdom  and  in  His  holiness  has 
determined  to  make  it  evident  and  to  set  it  forth,  by  actu- 
ally withholding  from  certain  men  that  efficient  grace  with- 
out which  it  is  impossible  that  they  should  repent  and  be- 
lieve ;  the  effect  of  which  righteous  withholdment  is  a  per- 
fect fulfilment  of  the  divine  decree  and  predictions  con- 
cerning them;  as  it  is  written,  "This  child  is  set  for  the  fall 
of  many  in  Israel;"  and  again,  "He  hath  mercy  on  whom  He 
will  have  mercy,  and  whom  he  will  He  hardeneth;"  and 
again,  "But  though  He  had  done  so  many  miracles  before 
them,  they  believed  not  in  Him:  that  the  saying  of  Esaias 
the  prophet  might  be  fulfilled,  which  he  spake,  saying,  Lord 
who  hath  believed  our  report?  and  to  whom  hath  the  arm 
of  the  Lord  been  revealed?  Therefore  they  could  not  be- 
lieve, because  that  Esaias  said  again,  He  hath  blinded  their 
eyes,  and  hardened  their  heart;  that  they  should  not  see 
with  their  eyes,  nor  understand  with  their  heart,  and  be 
converted,  and  I  should  heal  them." 

In  pursuance  of  the  purpose  thus  indicated,  we  are  taught 
again  that  Christ  is  made  "a  stone  of  stumbling,  and  a  rock 
of  offence,  even  unto  them  which  stumble  at  the  word,  being 
disobedient:  whereunto  they  were  appointed;"  and  again 
that  certain  wicked  men  are  "as  natural  brute  beasts,  made 
to  be  taken  and  destroyed ;"  and  once  more,  that  there  are 
"certain  men  crept  in  unawares,  who  were  of  old  ordained 
to  this  condemnation,  ungodly  men,  turning  the  grace  of 
God  into  lasciviousness,  and  denying  the  only  Lord  God,  and 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Xor  is  this  devotion,  or,  to  employ  inspired  language,  this 
"appointment  to  wrath,"  to  be  construed  into  a  mere  invol- 
untary permission,  or  a  barely  negative  refusal  on  the  part 
of  God.  The  act  is  positive,  determinate.  God  represents 
Himself  as  actually  setting  aside  and  rejecting  a  certain 
definite  and  fixed  number  of  our  fallen  race,  and  reserving 
them  for  that  punishment  which  is  most  justly  due  to  their 


216  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

known,  cherished,  innumerable,  and  aggravated  transgres- 
sions. These  predestinated  ungodly  are  known  individually 
to  God,  just  as  truly  as  are  the  elect ;  for  of  both  classes  He 
makes  the  generic  assertion,  "Jacob  have  I  loved,  but  Esau 
have  I  hated."  Therefore,  as  "the  election  hath  obtained  it, 
even  so"  the  rest  were  blinded,  that  is,  definitely  left  to 
blindness,  "according  as  it  is  written,  God  hath  given  them 
the  spirit  of  slumber,  eyes  that  they  should  not  see,  and  ears 
that  they  should  not  hear,  unto  this  day." 

At  this  point,  lest  any  be  tempted  to  misrepresent  the  doc- 
trine, as  if  God  made  certain  men  to  damn  them,  let  us  ex- 
plicitly deny  the  utterance  of  any  so  horrible  and  blasphem- 
ous a  sentiment.  The  doctrine  which  we  teach — the 
doctrine  of  the  Bible — is,  that  God  made  man  neither  to 
damn  him,  nor  yet  to  save  him,  but  for  His  ozvn  glory;*  and 
glorified  in  him  He  will  be — if  not  in  one  way,  then  in  an- 
other. Nor  is  it  our  doctrine  that  God  made  man  wicked 
in  order  to  damn  him;  for  "God  hath  made  man  upright; 
but  they  have  sought  out  many  inventions,"  which  wicked 
inventions  are  the  sole  procuring  cause  of  their  damnation. 
There  is  one  thing  which  the  creature  can  create  which 
God  cannot  create  and  that  thing  is  sin.  If  man  is  a  sin- 
ner he  has  himself  only  to  blame  for  it,  the  consequences, 
if  dreadful,  are  his  own.  Men  are  damned  for  sin  and  for 
sin  only;  for  God  "hath  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  him 
that  dieth."  The  reprobated  vessels  are  objects  of  wrath — 
of  wrath,  not  of  malice,  not  of  passion,  but  of  wrath ;  that 
is,  of  the  calm  and  holy  but  certain  and  irresistible  indigna- 
tion of  an  infinitely  righteous  God  who  must  and  will  punish 
sin. 

3.  The  objects  of  the  divine  forbearance  are  vessels  of 
wrath  fitted  to  destruction. 

God  destroys  nothing,  which  is  not  fitted  to  de- 
struction. If  vessels  of  wrath  are  destroyed,  it  is  be- 
cause this  is  what  they  are  fit  for,  and  because  they  are  fit 
for  nothing  else.  A  certain  fitness  exists  in  the  dry  tree  and 
the  chaff  for  the  flames  into  which  we  cast  them,  and  so  a 
certain  fitness  exists  in  the  sinner  for  his  doom. 

This  fitness,  however — and  here  let  me  speak  in  thunder 


*"The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  Himself."    Prov.  xvi:4. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  217 

tones — this  fitness  lost  sinners  ozve  entirely  to  themselves ! 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  sovereign,  unmerited  damnation. 
If  men  are  fitted  for  damnation  it  is  because  they  have  fitted 
themselves.  If  men  are  damned,  it  is  because  they  deserve 
damnation.  It  is  because  they  painfully  and  laboriously  fit 
themselves  for  a  just  damnation.  It  is  because  they  con- 
tinue to  "add  sin  to  sin,"  until  they  come  to  "draw  iniquity 
with  cords  of  vanity,  and  sin  as  it  were  with  a  cart  rope." 
If  men  are  damned,  it  is  because  they  do  evil  "with  both 
hands  earnestly,"  as  it  is  written,  "O  Israel,  thou  hast  de- 
stroyed thyself." 

The  sum  and  substance  of  the  Gospel  is  this,  "//  any  man 
be  saved,  God's  will  saves  him.  If  any  man  be  lost,  his  own 
ZL>i\l  damns  him:"  God  having  passed  over  a  fallen  man  ; 
having  left  him  as  he  found  him — a  thing  which  it  was  per- 
fectly right  for  God  to  do — this  man,  despite  all  the  outward 
restraints  of  God's  holy  providence ;  despite  all  the  calls 
of  God's  holy  Gospel ;  despite  all  the  strivings  of  God's  Holy 
Spirit — recklessly  goes  on  to  sin,  audaciously  presumes  upon 
divine  goodness  and  loving-kindness,  and  plunges  down- 
ward in  his  obstinately  mad  career,  as  the  avalanche  which 
gathers  volume  and  momentum  in  its  swift  descent,  or  as 
the  swine  which,  driven  by  devils,  ran  violently  down  a 
steep  place  and  perished  in  the  sea.  All  that  God  does  in  the 
case  of  a  reprobated  man  is  simply  this :  He  leaves  him  more 
or  less  absolutely  to  the  inevitable  gravitation  of  his  own 
depraved  and  self-destroying  nature.  There  is  no 
need,  that  God  should  do  anything  in  the  .  case 
of  a  reprobated  man,  except  leave  him  to  himself. 
The  man  does  all  the  rest.  He  damns  himself.  He  de- 
termines his  own  damnation  by  the  inevitable  gravitation 
of  his  own  depraved  and  self-destroying  nature.  Like  the 
mountain  torrent,  nature's  putrescent  stream  overleaps  every 
barrier  in  rushing  downward  to  abysmal  death.  The  fiat 
of  Omnipotence  alone  can  make  water  run  up-hill,  and  this 
is  the  appropriate  illustration  of  what  God  effects  when 
He  creates  a  new  heart  in  His  elect  and  renews  a  right 
spirit  within  them. 

Having  remarked  upon  the  objects  of  the  divine  for- 
bearance, let  me  now  speak: 


218  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

II.  Of  its  character.  "What  if  God  endured  with 
much  long-suffering  the  vessels  of  wrath  fitted  to  destruc- 
tion?" 

Any  endurance  and  toleration  of  a  sinner,  that  is  any 
delay  in  the  infliction  of  the  righteous  penalty  upon  a  sin- 
ner, is  in  itself  an  infinite  marvel — an  amazing  conde- 
scension on  the  part  of  God.  And  the  more  so  because 
such  delay  is,  as  appears  from  the  history  of  apostate 
angels,  without  a  precedent. 

When  angels  sinned,  wrath,  like  a  vengeful  thunderbolt, 
whelmed  them  at  once  in  depthless  ruin.  "The  angels  who 
kept  not  their  first  estate,  but  left  their  own  habitation, 
He  hath  reserved  in  everlasting  chains  under  darkness  unto 
the  judgment  of  the  great  day."  But  when  man  sins,  it 
is  not  so.  Wrath  waits.  God  seems  to  slumber.  Remedial 
processes  are  inaugurated  and  gradually  developed.  An 
atonement  is  revealed  in  glorious  figure — ample,  adequate, 
and  free.  This  atonement,  so  far  as  God  is  concerned, 
is  made  over  in  unconditional  offer  to  the  whole  human 
race  without  distinction.  It  is  preached  to  every  creature. 
If  any  creature  perishes,  therefore,  he  perishes  because 
he  wills  to  perish,  not  for  the  want  of  an  atonement.  For 
the  rejected  Cain  as  well  as  for  the  accepted  Abel,  a  sin- 
offering,  if  he  would  have  it,  lay  at  the  open  door.  Paradise 
redeemed  was  Cain's  as  well  as  Abel's,  provided  Cain  were 
willing  to  receive  it  as  the  purchase  of  a  Saviour's  blood. 
But  Cain  was  not  willing  to  receive  it.  He  would  have 
it  as  a  natural  right,  and  not  as  a  forfeited  gratuity.  He 
would  earn  it  and  claim  it  as  a  debt,  not  condescend  to 
take  it  as  an  alms.  In  one  word,  Cain  was  not  willing  to 
be  saved  for  nothing — and  in  this  he  stands  the  foremost 
type  of  reprobated  man.  Human  nature  is  never  willing 
to  be  saved  for  nothing — to  return,  a  ragged  prodigal,  a 
naked  pauper,  to  the  banquet-house  of  love.  Inasmuch, 
therefore,  as  God  cannot  put  salvation  at  any  lower  terms, 
and  inasmuch  as  the  sinner  will  not  have  it  on  the  lozvest 
terms,  whose  fault  is  it  if  the  sinner  dies,  as  Cain  died,  with- 
out salvation?  Whose  fault  is  it?  Does  God,  who  puts 
Himself  to  the  pains — yes,  and  suffering  too — of  procuring 
free  salvation ;  does  God,  who  invites,  yea,  beseeches  and 
even  commands  the  sinner  to  accept  this   free  salvation; 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  219 

does  God,  whose  every  word  and  whose  every  look  is 
mercy,  force  this  sinner  to  be  damned?  Did  God  force 
the  reprobated  Cain  to  reject  the  sin-offering;  or  the  repro- 
bated Esau  to  sell  his  birthright;  or  the  reprobated  Judas 
to  betray  his  Master?  Who,  in  the  light  of  God's  infinite 
long-suffering  toward  these  king-leaders  in  iniquity,  would 
venture  to  assert  the  horrific  blasphemy?  Nay,  my  breth- 
ren, the  fact  is  precisely  the  reverse.  Every  man,  when 
he  is  tempted,  "is  drawn  away  of  his  own  lust,  and  en- 
ticed. Then,  when  lust  hath  conceived,  it  bringeth  forth 
sin;  and  sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  death."  It 
is  a  man's  own  lust — his  own  self-generated,  inexplicable, 
and  ineradicable  lust  that  damns  him.  Refusing  to  hear 
the  voice  of  God,  he  deliberately  damns  himself.  He  hard- 
ens his  own  heart.  He  will  not  come  to  Christ  that  he 
may  have  life. 

Toward  such  a  sinner  God  exercises  not  long-suffering 
simply,  but  much  long  suffering.  He  makes  not  one  overture 
only,  but  ten  thousand  thousand  overtures.  He  gives  not 
one  warning  only,  but  ten  thousand  thousand  warnings. 
He  represents  Himself  as  coming  again  and  again,  His 
arms  loaded  with  blessings,  His  lips  filled  with  free  invita- 
tions, remonstrances,  expostulations,  and  persuasions  such 
as  God  alone  is  capable  of.  He  says,  "All  day  long  have 
I  stretched  out  my  hand  to  a  disobedient  and  gainsaying 
people." 

One  offer  of  a  gratuitous  salvation  ought,  to  suffice  for 
a  perishing  and  helpless  soul.  It  is  said  that  when  John 
Eliot  preached  his  first  sermon  in  the  Indian  language, 
those  poor  savages  who  had  never  before  heard  of  their 
fallen  and  accursed  state  in  Adam,  and  of  the  way  of  free, 
unmerited  salvation  through  the  imputed  righteousness  of 
Jesus  Christ,  were  so  melted  as  to  break  out  in  bitter  weep- 
ing and  piercing  cries,  and  ardent  expressions  of  irre- 
pressible desire.  It  would  seem  as  if  it  must  be  so  at 
every  presentation  of  the  glorious  Gospel.  It  would  seem 
as  if  salvation  for  nothing  could  not  remain  at  such  a 
discount  among  utterly  impotent  and  hopelessly  ruined 
men.  It  would  seem  as  if  those  who  felt  their  feet  slipping 
inch  by  inch  into  the  tumbling  billows  of  eternal  fire  would 


220  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

not  only  be  willing,  but  glad,  to  take  life  for  a  look  at  their 
crucified  God. 

It  remains  that  I  should  consider — 

III.    The  REASONS  OF  THE  DIVINE  FORBEARANCE.         "What 

if  God,  willing  to  show  His  wrath  and  to  make  His  power 
known,  endured  with  much  long-suffering  the  vessels  of 
wrath   fitted   to   destruction?" 

One  reason  why  God  endures  the  reprobated  wicked  is, 
that  in  the  day  of  the  revelation  of  His  glory  He  may  the 
more  lustriously  display  His  wrath.  He  leaves  them  to  fill 
up  their  sins,  in  order  that  wrath  may  come  upon  them 
to  the  uttermost.  So  it  is  said  of  the  finally  lost,  that 
"they  shall  drink  of  the  wine  of  the  wrath  of  God  which 
is  poured  out  without  mixture  into  the  cup  of  His  in- 
dignation ;  and  be  tormented  with  fire  and  brimstone  in 
the  presence  of  the  holy  angels,  and  in  the  presence  of 
the  Lamb ;  and  the  smoke  of  their  torment  ascendeth  up 
for  ever  and  ever."  Since  God  has  predicted  that  this 
shall  be  so,  God  has  decreed  that  it  shall  be  so;  and  that 
for  His  own  glorv,  that  by  the  infliction  of  wrath  it  may 
be  nroved  that  God  is  just  as  well  as  merciful — that  He 
is  holiness  as  well  as  love. 

But  the  text  says  to  show,  (evdei^adSat)  to  point  out 
as  on  a  blackboard.  To  display  His  wrath.  If  it  be  right 
to  visit  wrath,  it  certainly  must  be  right  to  do  so  ofienly 
— to  make  a  tremendous  demonstration  of  it — a  demon- 
stration worthy  of  the  fixed  and  awe-struck  gaze  of  a  pre- 
served, redeemed,  adoring  universe ;  and  so  it  is  said  that 
the  wicked  lost  shall  be  tormented  "in  the  presence  of  the 
holy  angels  and  in  the  presence  of  the  Lamb." 

But  if  it  be  right  to  inflict  wrath  openly — to  lead  sin- 
ners to  a  public  execution — then  it  must  be  glorious  to  do 
so.  For  what  it  is  right  for  God  to  do  it  is  glorious  for 
God  to  do.  And  if  glorious,  then  worthy  of  all  admira- 
tion. Accordingly  we  read,  "After  these  things" — that  is, 
the  burning  of  the  mystic  Babylon,  with  its  attendant  hor- 
rors— "I  heard  a  great  voice  of  much  people  in  heaven, 
saying,  Alleluia ;  salvation,  and  glory,  and  honor,  and  power, 
unto  the  Lord  our  God."  "And  again  they  said,  Alleluia.  And 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  221 

her  smoke  rose  up  for  ever  and  ever.  And  the  four  and 
twenty  elders  and  the  four  beasts  fell  down  and  worshipped 
God  that  sat  on  the  throne,  saying,  Amen;  Alleluia."  "And 
I  heard  as  it  were  the  voice  of  a  great  multitude,  and  as 
the  voice  of  mighty  thunderings,  saying,  Alleluia :  for  the 
Lord  God  omnipotent  reigneth."  There  is  no  question, 
but  that  one  reason  why  God  has  determined  to  show  His 
wrath  on  ungodly  sinners  is,  that  He  may  furnish  the 
theme  of  an  eternal  song  for  His  redeemed.  "The  righteous 
shall  rejoice  when  he  seeth  the  vengeance ;  he  shall  wash 
his  feet  in  the  blood  of  the  wicked."  The  explanation  of 
this  is  found,  not  in  the  fact  that  holy  beings  are  capable 
of  taking  pleasure  in  the  suffering  of  their  fellow-creatures, 
but  in  the  fact  that  holy  beings  will  have  the  same  mind 
and  spirit  as  has  a  holy  God.  Holy  beings  will  rejoice 
in  the  overthrow  of  the  malignant  enemies  of  God.  Holy 
beings  will  triumph  in  the  triumphs  of  a  holy  God.  Stand- 
ing upon  the  further  shore  of  a  gratuitous  deliverance,  they 
will  raise,  as  Israel  above  the  shipwrecked  armament  of 
Pharaoh,  the  song  of  Moses  and  the  Lamb,  saying,  "I  will 
sing  unto  the  Lord:  for  He  hath  triumphed  gloriously: 
the  horse  and  his  rider  hath  He  thrown  into  the  sea." 

A  second  reason  of  the  divine  forbearance  is,  that  God, 
in  the  destruction  of  the  wicked,  may  make  known  the 
cxhaitstless  secrets  of  His  pozver.  He  will  let  the  sinner, 
like  the  deadly  upas,  grow  until  his  loftly  stature  and  his 
mighty  girdage  shall  require  the  axe  of  Omnipotence  itself 
to  lay  them  low. 

Dear  brethren,  I  can  speak  no  longer  on  this  stupendous 
theme.  Those  of  us  who  have  reached  a  comfortable  as- 
surance of  our  election,  through  faith  in  Jesus'  blood,  will 
rejoice  in  the  vision  of  these  truths — with  trembling  it  may 
be,  but  with  rapture  will  we  rejoice.  Those  who  are  per- 
suaded that  as  yet  they  have  neither  part  nor  lot  in  a 
gratuitous  salvation  will  do  well  to  cherish  the  slightest 
movement  of  God's  Spirit  in  their  hearts — will  do  well  to 
realize  the  momentous  truth  that  they  are  wholly  at  the 
mercy  and  disposal  of  a  sovereign  God — will  do  well  to 
humble  themselves  beneath  His  sovereignity ;  above  all,  and 
first  of  all,  and  inclusive  of  all,  will  do  well  to  accept  just 
now  and  here,  a  free  salvation  wholly  through  the  righteous- 


222  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

ness  of  Jesus.  Since  it  is  the  command  of  God  as  well  as 
His  winning  invitation,  "Come;  for  all  things  are  now 
ready."  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved."  Every  man  who  hears  the  Gospel  has  a  right 
to  believe  that  he  is  personally  called  and,  if  called,  he 
has  a  right  to  obey  the  call  and,  if  he  obeys  it,  his  election 
is  made  sure.  No  man  has  a  right  to  put  himself  among  the 
reprobate  and  if,  in  the  exercise  of  a  sullen  and  diabolical 
Spirit,  he  does  so,  he  will  be  found  where  he  put  himself 
and  the  blame  will  be  only  his  own.  No  man  can  believe 
without  the  Holv  Spirit?  Well  then  let  him  throw  himself 
upon  the  Spirit's  power  while  in  felt  and  self  despairing 
helplessness  he  cries:  "Lord  I  believe,  heh  Thou  mine  un- 
belief!" 

Now  to  God  only  wise  be  glory  through  Jesus  Christ 
for  ever.    Amen. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  223 


WHAT  GOD  CANNOT  DO :  OR  SAVED  BY 
PROMISE. 

Titus  i  :2. 

In  hope  of  eternal  life,  which  God,  that  cannot  lie,  promised 
before  the  world  began. 

The  Gospel  is  a  revelation  of  hope.  Hope  is  the 
world's  star — its  one  brightness, — since  it  is  for  the 
future  and  not  the  past,  and  not  the  present,  that  man 
exists.  Even  in  this  life,  they  who  start  without  bright 
hopes  and  aspirations,  might  as  well  not  start  at  all,  fot 
every  step  will  be  a  failure. 

It  is,  however,  as  the  vista  prolongs  itself,  that  hope 
finds  her  proper  sphere  and  dominion.  St.  Paul,  in  one 
place,  says :  "If  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  we  are 
most  miserable."  We  are  so  because  of  the  disappoint- 
ing and  the  transitory  character  of  earthly  hopes.  The 
best  good  that  man  can  obtain  here,  is  but  temporary 
and  cannot  descend  with  him  into  the  grave. 

"A  heavenly  hope  is  all  serene, 

But  earthly  hope,  how  bright  soe'er 
Still  fluctuates  o'er  this  changing  scene. 

As  false  and  fleeting  as  'tis  fair." 

"In  hope  of  eternal  life !" — of  conscious,  active,  happy, 
unending  existence.  That  is  indeed  a  world  beyond  the 
world — the  world  on  which  our  thoughts  must  centre,  even 
if  we  would  make  the  present  world  of  value. 

"The  potent  force  of  the  world  to  come  supplies  us," 
says  one,  "with  force  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
duties  of  this  life.  Here  is  a  man  who  has  a  machine  for 
the  manufacture  of  hardware.  He  wants  steam  power 
to  work  this  machine.  An  engineer  puts  up  an  engine  in 
a  shed  at  a  distance.  'But,'  says  the  other,  T  asked  you 
to    bring    the    power    here    to    operate    on    my    machine.' 


224  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

'That  is  precisely,'  he  answers,  'what  I  have  done.  I 
put  the  steam  engine  off  there.  You  have  only  to  con- 
nect it  by  a  band  and  your  machine  works  as  fast  as  you 
like.  It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  put  the  boiler  and 
the  fire  and  the  engine  close  to  the  work;  just  under 
your  nose.  Only  connect  the  two  and  the  one  will  op- 
erate on  the  other.'  So  God  has  been  pleased  to  make 
our  hopes  and  future  the  great  engine  wherewith  the 
Christian  man  may  work  the  machine  of  every  day  life, 
— for  the  band  of  faith  connects  the  two  and  makes  all 
the  wheels  of  ordinary  life  revolve  in  rapid  and  regular 
motion." 

"Our  greatest  good  and  what  we  least  can  spare, 

Is  hope — the  last  of  all  our  evils,  fear." 

"In  hope  of  eternal  life !"  Life,  to  be  eternal  must  be  in 
God, — in  reconciliation  to  God, — in  union  with  God,  and 
constant  inflowing  from  God. 

As  God  is  the  author  of  all  life, — As  there  was  no  life 
until  He  created  it — and,  as  separation  from  God  is  the 
worst  of  all  evils — eternal  life  must  be  ours  only  from 
God  and  on  His  conditions. — In  other  words,  its  founda- 
tion and  guarantee  must  be  God  and  His  word.  That 
brings  us  at  once  to  the  text. — "In  hope  of  eternal  life 
which  God,  that  cannot  lie,  promised  before  the  world 
began." 

Consider: 

I.  The  foundation  of  eternal  hope — the  character  of 
God  who  cannot  lie. 

II.  Its  guarantee  or  warrant — His  promise.     And : 

I.  The  foundation  of  eternal  hope — It  is  not  any 
creature,  man  or  angel — not  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  mother 
of  our  Lord — to  whom  the  prayer  is  put  up  by  so  many. 
Salve  Regina — Salve  Spes  nostra — "Save  us  O  Queen — 
Save  us  our  hope." 

Nor  is  the  hope  any  creature  good,  or  enjoyment — 
"If."  says  Job,  "I  have  made  gold  my  hope !" 

Nor  is  it  any  merit  or  worthiness,  or  righteousness 
we  can  attain — a  hope  like  the  spider's  web  spun  from 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  225 

ourselves — with  no  solidity  or  strength,  or  substance. 
"They  weave  the  spider's  web — their  webs  shall  not  be- 
come garments — neither  shall  they  cover  themselves 
with  their  works." 

The  foundation — to  last  to  eternity — must  have  been 
from  eternity — where  shall  that  be  but  in  God? 
/;/  the  immutability  of  God — that  He  cannot  change. 
Creatures  change — fortune  perishes — our  righteous- 
nesses turn  to  filthy  rags.  These  are  a  foundation  of 
water — of  sifting,  shifting  sand,  and  so  in  every  confi- 
dence outside  "the  Rock  of  Ages" — the  immutable  God. 

God  is  immutable  in  His  being — His  essence.  His  eter- 
nity obliges  this,  or  rather,  this  obliges  His  eternity  and 
lies  back  of  all.  For  eternity  respects  duration,  but  im- 
mutability respects  the  very  essence  which  endures. 
Back  of  all,  then,  God  is  unchangeable. 

This  unchangeableness  in  God  was  represented  by  the 
ancients  as  a  cube,  or  solid  block  of  wood  or  metal, 
framed  foursquare,  where  every  side  is  of  the  same 
equality,  so  that,  cast  it  which  way  you  will,  it  will  al- 
ways be  the  same  because  equal  to  itself  in  all  its  di- 
mensions. If  there  were  any  change  in  God,  He  would 
sometimes  be  what  He  zvas  not,  and  would  cease  to  be 
what  He  is — i.  e.,  God.  With  Him,  therefore,  there  can 
be  neither  variableness  nor  shadow  of  turning.  The 
very  name  "Jehovah"  in  Hebrew,  expresses  this.  It  is 
always  the  same.  It  has  no  plural,  no  case  endings, — 
nothing  can  be  put  to,  or  taken  from  the  four  letters  of 
which  it  is  composed.     "I  am  Jehovah,  I  change  not." 

Objection  has  been  brought  to  this,  from  the  "creation 
of  the  world."  Philosophers  have  said  that  a  creation  in 
time  involves  a  change  in  God 

But  this  is  to  confound  change  with  manifestation.  A 
sun  shining  into  a  house  does  not  involve  a  change  in  the 
sun  but  only  in  his  manifestation.  The  sun  is  precisely 
what  it  was,  and  so  God.  Neither  in  creation,  nor  in  in- 
carnation, nor  in  what  is  expressed  by  His  repenting, 
does  He  alter  one  atom.  Creation  is  simplv  an  act  of 
His    in    time.      Incarnation    is    the    assumption    of    our 


226  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

nature  with  no  variation  in  His  own.  His  repenting  is 
a  change  of  attitude  but  always  in  the  line  of  His  own 
infallible  purpose.  Did  God  say  He  would  destroy 
Nineveh?  He  did  it.  Forty,  in  the  Bible  means  proba- 
tion— 40  days,  a  certain  probation.  After  that  proba- 
tion— Nineveh,  going  back  to  its  wickedness — was  de- 
stroyed. There  is  no  such  howling  waste,  as  are  those 
lonely  mounds,  anywhere. 

God  is  immutable  in  His  essence,  and,  again,  in  His 
attributes — in  His  knowledge.  He  is  omniscient — He 
knows  no  more  now,  than  He  has  always  known — He 
will  learn  nothing  new,  forever  and  ever. 

God  is  immutable  in  His  wisdom.  From  all  possible 
plans,  He  has,  from  eternity,  chosen  the  best.  Would 
you  go  to  work  at  anything  without  a  plan?  So,  "known 
unto  God,  are  all  His  works  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world."  He  knows  them  as  certain  because  He  has  fixed 
them  in  His  decree. 

God  is  immutable  in  His  power.  Alexander  was  pow- 
erful when  he  crossed  the  Granicus,  but  not  when  he  lay 
in  Babylon  gasping  for  breath.  God  is  the  same  in 
power.  "He  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary" — "My  coun- 
sel shall  stand,"  he  has  said,  "and  I  will  do  all  My  pleas- 
ure." "Once,  twice  have  I  heard  this — that  power  be- 
longeth  unto  God." 

God  is  immutable  in  His  justice — in  His  love — in  His 
truth.  Take  any  attribute  and  you  may  write  on  it.  Semper 
idem — "always  the  same." 

That  places  the  fact  of  the  text  in  its  strongest  possi- 
ble light.  The  word  "lie"  here  includes,  bevond  its  ordi- 
nary meaning,  the  thought  of  any  change,  so  that  when 
we  read  that  God  cannot  lie  we  understand  bv  it — not 
only,  that  He  cannot  sav  what  is  untrue,  but  that — hav- 
ing said  something  which  is  true — He  never  changes 
from  it,  and  does  not,  bv  anv  possibility,  alter  His  mean- 
ing or  retract  His  word.  We  can  count  on  Him  per- 
fectlv.  utterlv.  absolutelv.  A  lie  means  an  inconsistencv 
— a  contradiction — He  cannot  deny — arnesasthai — He  can- 
not  contradict   Himself. 

God's  immutabilitv  in  the  text,  is  focalized  to  this 
point.     His  word  cannot  change — His  threatenings  can- 


THE   DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  227 

not  change — His  promise  cannot  change.  He  cannot 
falsify,  disappoint,  delude,  prevaricate,  or  deceive  He 
is  Ho  Apseudes — the  undeceiving  God. 

GOD  CANNOT  LIE! 

He  cannot  falsify  His  ivord.  He  cannot  depart  from 
it,  alter  it,  or  break  it.  "Forever,  O  Lord.  Thy  word  is 
settled  in  heaven." 

Forever,  as  well,  is  it  settled  in  earth.  "My  covenant 
will  I  not  break  nor  alter  the  thing  that  has  gone  out  of 
My  lips."  "Every  word  of  God  is  pure — as  silver  tried 
in  a  furnace  of  earth," — and  the  earth  may  make  that 
furnace  as  hot  as  she  pleases — pure,  i.  e.,  "unalloyed,  in- 
adulterate" — tsurupa,  smelted,  refined — tried  by  being  passed 
again  and  again  through  the  fire.  "Add  thou  not  to  His 
words  lest  He  reprove  thee  and  thou  be  found  a  liar." 
"If  any  man  shall  take  away  from  the  words  of  this 
Book,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  out  of  the  Book  of 
life  and  from  the  Holy  City." 

There  is  no  kind  of  question  about  it.  The  Bible  is 
true.  It  is  true  in  every  statement  It  is  true  in  every 
word.  It  is  true  in  every  letter.  It  is  not  only  verbally 
inspired,  but  every  penstroke  on  the  original  MS.,  was 
put  there  by  God,  and  is  kept  there  by  God  and  will  re- 
appear again — and  again  with  all  its  original  force  and 
no  criticism,  and  no  readjustment  and  no  redaction  made 
by  silly  wise-acres  can  prevent  it. 

It  is  astonishing  what  a  sensation  is  caused  every  now 
and  again  by  the  outburst  of  some  re-vamped  infidelity. 
The  old  serpent  has  his  successors  who  stand — as  he 
stood,  on  tail,  in  points  of  interrogation.  "Yea,  hath 
God  said?"  Yea  He  hath  said.  There  was  the  witty, 
sneering  system  of  Voltaire  who  spawned  the  French 
Revolution.  There  was  the  vulgar  profanity  of  Tom 
Paine.  Then  there  was  Bishop  Colenso — then  Robert- 
son Smith  and  so  down  to  the  feebler  echoes  upon  our 
own  shores,  and  in  our  own  recent  times. 

What  is  the  result  of  it  all?  The  Bible  is  better  un- 
derstood— it  is  more  highly  venerated  and  prized — and. 
on  the  whole,  it  is  more  cordially  received  and  practiced 
than  it  has  ever  been  before. 


228  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

One  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  infidels  did  not  be- 
lieve there  was  any  Nineveh.  Then  God  uncovered  the 
ruin  of  Koyunjik.  They  did  not  believe  there  was  any 
Jonah,  and  lo !  and  behold!  a  score  of  figures  represent- 
ing the  great  preaching  Fish-man,  with  the  name  Yones 
inscribed  on  them,  came  there  to  light.  They  did  not 
believe  there  could  have  been  any  such  fight  as  that  be- 
tween Abraham  and  the  four  kings,  or  any  four  kings, — 
God  came  again  and  deciphered  the  cuneiform  tablets  and 
the  names  of  Amraphel,  King  of  Shinar;  Arioch,  King  of 
Ellasar;  Chedorlaomer,  King  of  Elam,  and  Tidal,  King 
of  Nations,  are  not  only  found  on  them,  but  the  names 
of  the  kingdoms  as  well — tallying  word  for  word  with 
Gen.  xivro,.  About  twenty  years  ago  the  assertion  was 
made  that  Moses  could  not  have  written  the  laws  of  the 
Pentateuch — that  they  could  not  have  been  written  be- 
fore the  captivity,  because  in  the  barbaric — little  better 
than  stone  age  of  Moses,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a 
code.  Then,  at  the  end  of  the  year  1901,  i.  e.,  three  years 
ago — when  the  critics  had  gotten  their  theory  settled  and 
were  laughing  old  conservatives  to  scorn — among  the 
ruins  of  Susa,  Shushan  the  Palace,  there  was  discovered 
a  complete  code  of  laws  written  on  an  enormous  block 
of  polished  black  marble.  These  are  called  "the 
Khammur-rabi  code,"  and  they  date  back  to  the  time  of  the 
Exodus.  When  the  discovery  was  made,  what  did  the 
critics  do.  They  wheeled  around  and  said,  "Moses  stole 
his  laws  from  Khammur-rabi,"  simply  because  they  could 
not  have  it  that  God  gave  to  Moses  a  law. 

But  time  fails  me  to  rest  on  this  point.  The  Bible  is 
God  in  voice  and  God  in  print.  It  is  God  speaking  and 
written.  It  not  only  contains  His  word,  it  is  His  word. 
It  is  net  a  lump  of  gold  in  a  bushel  of  quartz,  but  it  is  all 
gold  and  nothing  but  gold — a  word  that  cannot  lie 

God  cannot  lie.  He  cannot  change  in  His  threatenings. 
God's  word  contains  His  law,  which  old  divines  used  to 
style  "the  transcript  of  His  perfections."  But  law  is  only 
law  when  it  has  sanctions.  A  command  without  a  pen- 
alty attached  were  mere  advice  or  persuasion.  It  be- 
comes something  more  than  advice  when  it  says :  "Dis- 
obey me  and  suffer!"     "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  229 

die."  There  is  no  law  without  penalty  and  the  penalty 
quadrates  with  it  and  is  as  changeless  as  the  law.  If 
the  law  is  unchangeable,  and,  if  God  has  spoken  it,  it  is 
— then  the  penalty  is  unchangeable, — then  sin,  in  every 
case,  must  be  followed  by  death.  Then  it  is  either  "die 
sinner  or  die  Jesus,"  and,  if  the  sinner  does  not  accept 
Christ  to  die  for  him,  as  his  substitute,  he  dies  for  him- 
self, and  there  is  no  other  way. 

It  is  useless  to  hope  that,  in  spite  of  what  He  says, 
God  will  not  do  as  He  says.  He  will,  to  the  uttermost. 
"Wrath  is  come  upon  them  to  the  uttermost."  "He  that 
being  often  reproved  hardeneth  his  neck,  shall  suddenly 
be  cut  off,  and  that  without  remedy.  The  wicked  shall 
be  turned  into  hell."  These  shall  go  away  into  everlast- 
ing punishment. 

Some  people  refuse  to  believe  in  any  hell.  But  blind- 
ing the  eyes  to  it  and  denying  it,  does  not  make  it  less 
real.  The  suicide  leaps  from  the  miseries  of  this  life  into 
— what?  "Into  the  fire  that  never  can  be  quenched, 
where  their  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched."  These  are  the  solemn  words  of  Him  whose 
boundless  compassion  brought  Him  hither  to  save  us, 
and  they  confirm  the  unchangeableness  of  the  threaten- 
ings  of  God.  "God  is  not  a  man  that  He  should  lie,  nor 
the  son  of  man  that  He  should  repent.  Hath  He  said 
and  shall  He  not  do  it?  Hath  He  spoken  and  shall  He 
not  make  it  good?" 

God  is  immutable  in  His  word  and  in  His  threaten- 
ings — He  is  also  immutable  in  His  promises.  It  is  this  as- 
pect of  His  unchangeableness  that  is  insisted  upon  in  the 
text — "In  hope  of  eternal  life  which  God,  that  cannot  lie, 
promised  before  the  world  began." 

God  has  seen  fit  to  deal  with  men  by  promise,  not  by 
bargain,  but  promise.  There  was  something  like  a  bar- 
gain in  Eden  when  God  said,  "Dress  it  and  keep  it — do,  and 
you  shall  live."  But  that  was  not  an  eternal  arrange- 
ment. It  was  said  bv  way  of  a  test  which  could  only 
break  down.  Back  of  Eden,  and  back  of  any  temporal  cove- 
nant, lay  the  eternal  covenant  in  which  God  had  prom- 
ised for  Christ's  sake,  to  save  the  people  of  Christ 
for  whom  He  should  make  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin. 


230  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

The  promise,  then,  was  before  creation.  It  is  older 
than  the  universe.  It  is  as  ancient  as  is  the  Ancient  of 
days.  God's  first  utterance  of  any  sort  was  a  promise. 
God  promised  to  save,  for  Christ's  sake,  who  was  to  do 
everything  for  them,  those  who  trusted  in  Christ,  and 
that  promise  was  made,  says  the  text,  "before  the  world 
began." 

Salvation,  then,  was  suspended  upon  a  simple  promise 
to  save,  before  the  world  began.  God  then  proclaimed 
that  He  would  save  sinners  for  nothing, — simply  because 
He  was  disposed  to  save  them  for  nothing  that  they 
might  owe  it — never  to  anything  in  themselves  or  of 
themselves — never  to  anything  done,  or  felt  or  labored 
by  themselves — never  to  any  merit,  but  to  His  mere 
mercy  in  Christ.  "According  to  His  mercy  He  saved 
.us." 

That  promise  can  never  be  shaken — nor  changed,  nor 
can  the  condition  be  altered.  We  are  saved  by  mere 
promise,  or  never  at  all. 

The  promise  is  the  word  of  God  who  cannot  lie.  Oth- 
ers who  speak  to  us,  may  lie, — and  we,  credulous  always 
in  the  evil  direction,  believe  their  lies.  We  believe  the 
devil  who  is  always  cheating  our  hope  as  he  cheated  that 
of  Adam  in  Eden.  It  is  by  lying  that  Satan  now  holds 
the  world  and  maintains  his  influence  and  power  over 
men.  "When  he  speaketh  a  lie,  he  speaketh  of  his  own 
— for  he  is  a  liar  and  the  father  of  it." 

The  same  experience  holds  true  of  men.  David  said  in 
his  haste,  "All  men  are  liars."  He  went  too  far  in  that 
statement  and  had  to  correct  himself  in  a  measure,  but 
still  it  remains  that  men  will  promise  and  break  their 
promises — in  other  words,  lie — and  infamously  lie — to 
the  disappointment,  loss,  wreck,  failure  and  destruction 
of  others. 

"God  who  cannot  lie!"  There  is  no  man  of  whom  that 
can  be  said.  There  may  be  men  who  will  not  lie  but 
there  cannot  be  a  man  of  whom  it  may  be  said.  He 
cannot  lie.  For  alas !  we  all  have  the  root  of  deceitful- 
ness  in  us  and  will  prove  false  everywhere — in  every 
trust — in  every  engagement — in  every,  the  most  solemn 
promise — however  we  may  be  bound  by  oath  or  legal 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE.  231 

document — unless  the  grace  of  God  help  us, — to  that  de- 
gree it  is  true  that  "all  men  are  liars." 

But  God  cannot  lie.  If  you  knew  a  man  who  could  not 
lie,  you  would  trust  him  without  oath — without  bond, 
and  in  spite  of  all  counter  testimonies,  appearances  and 
assertions.  The  very  fact  that  he  could  not  lie  would, 
in  itself,  make  him  sure. 

That  is  what  the  text  says  of  God.  There  is  one  thing 
and  only  one  thing,  He  cannot  do.  He  can  do  anything 
else  but  falsify — prove  untrue  to  Himself — to  His  word. 

That  is  the  foundation  on  which  hope — eternal  hope — 
hope  of  eternal  life,  has  been  built  and  established.  God 
has  promised  to  save  to  the  uttermost  for  Christ's  sake, 
and  God  cannot  lie. 

"Firm  as  His  throne  His  promise  stands. 

And  He  can  well  secure 
What  I've  committed  to  His  hands 

In  the  decisive  hour." 

God  has  promised  to  receive,  accept,  welcome,  own, 
justify,  keep,  persevere  with,  bring  to  Heaven,  all  who 
will  take  Him  at  His  simple  word — risk  it — and  rely 
upon  it  without  after-thought  or  condition. 

"His  every  word  of  grace  is  strong 
As  that  which  built  the  skies; 

The  voice  which  rolls  the  stars  along 
Speaks  all  the  promises." 

And  that  brings  us  to  the 

II.  point.  The  guarantee,-  the  warrant  of  hope  is  simply 
God's  promise.  All  that  there  is  between  us  and  perdi- 
tion— all  that  there  is  between  us  and  heaven  is  the 
promise  of  God  laid  hold  of  by  faith. 

Hope  is  made  up  of  two  things — desire  and  expecta- 
tion. Desire  alone  is  not  hope.  A  man  might  desire  a 
crown,  or  a  million  of  dollars  without  the  slightest  hope 
of  getting  either.  Nor  is  expectation,  by  itself,  hope.  A 
man  may  expect  punishment,  calamity,  death  and  not 
hope  for  these  things  but  fear  them  greatly.     But  when 


232  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

desire  and  expectation  are  united — when  the  man  wishes 
a  thing  and  has  ground  to  believe  he  will  get  it — that 
constitutes  hope,  involving  faith, — and,  when  it  rests  on 
God's  word,  it  is  styled  "Good  hope  through  grace" — 
"which  hope  we  have,"  says  the  Apostle,  "an  anchor  to 
the  soul  both  sure  and  steadfast,  and  that  entereth  into 
that  within  the  veil." 

The  foundation  of  that  hope  is  God  who  cannot  lie. 
The  guarantee  of  that  hope  is  His  promise.  What  se- 
cures it,  then,  is  laying  hold  of  the  promise — in  other 
words,  a  simple  act  of  faith. 

The  promise  speaks  out  of  the  sky — or  rather,  out  of 
God's  word,  and  the  soul  responds  by  believing  and  rest- 
ing upon  it.  So  Abraham,  it  is  said,  believed  God  and 
it  was  counted  to  him  for  righteousness — i.  e.,  faith  in 
the  promise  was  just  as  good  as  if  Abraham  had  had  the 
most  perfect  possible  righteousness.  He  had  no  right- 
eousness for,  at  the  time,  he  was  an  uncircumcised, 
idolatrous  man,  but  God  spoke  to  him  in  Ur  of 
the  Chaldees  and  said,  "I  will  give  thee  a  land — 
an  eternal  and  blissful  inheritance — I  will  bless  thee  in 
Christ."  And  Abraham  simply  believed  and  followed 
God  out  and  took  possession  of  the  inheritance. 

The  Law  was  given  to  the  descendants  of  Abraham 
later,  at  Sinai,  but  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  founda- 
tion before  God  on  which  they  stood.  St.  Paul  argues 
this  in  the  Galatians, — "Now  to  Abraham  and  his  seed 
were  the  promises  made — to  his  seed  which  is  Christ. 
And  this  I  say,  that  the  covenant  which  was  confirmed 
before,  by  God,  in  Christ,  the  law,  which  was  450  years 
after,  cannot  disannul  that  it  should  make  the  promise  of 
none  effect.  For,  if  the  inheritance  comes  by  the  law, 
it  is  no  longer  by  promise,  but  God  gave  it  to  Abraham 
by  promise.  If  you  tell  a  man,  you  will  give  him  a  farm, 
and  afterward  come  and  tell  him  he  must  work  for  it,  and 
pay  by  installments,  then,  you  have  changed  the  condi- 
tion— you  have  broken  your  word.  It  is  no  longer  a 
simple  out  and  out  gift. 

"What,  then,  is  the  good  of  the  law?"  asks  St  Paul. 
"It  was  added,"  he  answers,  "because  of  transgressions 
— that  men  might  see  and  realize  they  never  could  keep 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  233 

it — and  give  up  trying,  and  cast  themselves  on  the  prom- 
ise. It  is  thus  that  the  law  becomes  our  teacher,  or 
schoolmaster,  to  bring  us  to  Christ,  that  we  might  be 
justified  simply,  only,  out  and  out,  by  faith." 

What  saves,  then,  is  God  Himself — His  undeceiving  word 
His  simple  promise  in  Christ. 

My  business,  and  the  whole  of  my  business,  is  to  trust 
in  that  promise.  Just  as  if  a  man,  listening  to  a  will, 
hears  that  he  gets  a  legacy  of  $20,000.  That  is  all.  He 
does  not  work  for  it.  He  does  not  try  to  make  it  more 
substantial  or  more  certain — He  gets  it.  He  believes  it 
is  his.    That  is  all. 

I  have  read  the  story  of  a  poor  hungry  Indian,  who 
came  to  a  Western  village  and  begged  for  something  to 
eat.  A  little  skin  bag  hung  by  a  ribbon  round  his  neck. 
There  was  supposed  to  be  a  charm  in  it.  "Somebody  had 
given  it  to  him,"  he  said,  "in  his  youth,  and  had  told  him 
it  would  keep  him  from  want  all  his  life."  A  white  man 
saw  that  it  had  writing  upon  it,  and  read  it  to  him  It 
was  a  pension  paper  from  the  United  States  Government 
entitling  him  to  a  pension  for  life  and  was  signed  George 
Washington. 

That  Indian  had  wandered  around  all  his  life — a  poor, 
wretched,  half  starved  creature — working  for  an  exist- 
ence, begging  for  an  existence — worrying  about  how  he 
should  live  and  what  would  become  of  him — and,  all  the 
while,  he  had  a  writing  that  would  have  secured  for  him 
comfort  and  happiness. 

He  did  not  realize  what  had  been  true  and  near  him 
all  his  life— in  his  hand  so  to  say — could  he  only  have 
acted  upon  it  by  faith. 

The  promises  of  God  shine  like  stars.  So  God  put  it 
to  Abraham, — "Look  at  the  stars!  You  did  not  make 
them.  You  cannot  alter  them.  You  cannot  aid  them,  or 
add  to  them  :  Simply  believe  in  them.  So  shall  thv  seed 
be." 

The  warrant  for  believing  lies  in  the  promise  itself. 
The  promise  brings  its  own  warrant.  The  promise  says, 
"You  may;"  the  promise  says  "you  must;"  the  promise  says 
"You  are  shut  up  to  me !"  And  I !  I  say,  "Lord,  I  be- 
lieve." 


234  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Faith  is  taking  God  at  His  word — His  undeceiving 
word,  and  trusting  Jesus  Christ  as  my  Saviour,  although 
I  am  utterly  unfit  and  unworthy  of  His  regard. 

Faith  is  a  sinner  trusting.  An  idolatrous  Abram, — 
not  a  saint — not  a  regenerated  man, — not  a  penitent 
trusting  man  but  a  sinner,  and  in  his  sinnership,  trusting  to 
be  saved  on  another's  account. 

My  warrant,  then,  is  the  promise.  The  promise  puts 
out  its  hand  and  takes  hold  of  me — bad  as  I  am.  It  asks 
nothing  of  me — nothing  done — nothing  felt — it  pledges 
after-work — after-feeling.  It  says,  "I  will  take  care  of 
all  that.     I  will  work  in  you  to  will  and  to  do." 

An  electrical  machine  stands  before  you.  You  take  the 
balls  in  your  hands  and  are  thrilled  by  the  current.  You 
do  not  thrill  yourself.  You  take  hold  of  the  handles. 
The  machine  does  the  work. 

We  are  shut  up  to  the  promise.  That,  or  nothing 
That,  or  a  lost  soul.  God  says,  "I  have  promised,  do  you 
hear?  Sooner  than  break  my  promise  I  will  give  my 
own  Son  to  die. 

What  is  your  secret  and  most  inner  hope,  my  brother? 
A  man's  secret  hope  is  a  truer  test  of  his  condition  than 
any  character,  or  acts  he  may  perform.  If  your  hope  is 
in  the  promise  of  God,  it  must  be  well  with  you — You 
are  in  the  same  boat  with  Abraham,  anchored  to  the 
same  Rock  of  Ages. 

Notice — We  are  not  saved  in  part  by  ourselves,  and  in 
part  by  the  promise  of  God.  We  must  swing  off  on  the 
promise.  It  is  not  because  I  deserve  anything,  but  be- 
cause God  has  freely  promised  it  in  Christ,  therefore,  I 
shall  receive  it.  There  is  the  reason  and  ground  of  our 
hope. 

Nor,  in  believing,  am  I  to  look  at  anything  that  shall 
result  so  far  as  I  am  concerned — that  I  shall  be  this,  or 
that — or  feel  this  or  that — or  do  this  or  that.  I  am  to 
look  with  fixed  and  steady  gaze — as  at  a  star,  at  this  one 
great  fact — God  promises  to  save  me.  He  promises  to 
take  care  of  my  future, — and  I  risk  it  on  His  word.  I 
swing  off  on  that.  I  hang  upon  if  I  die  for  it,  but  hang- 
ing on  it,  I  can  never  die." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  235 


THE  ATONEMENT. 

2  Cor.  v  :2i. 

"He  hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin ;  that  we 
might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Him." 

There  are  two  classes  of  objectors  to  orthodox  truth.  One 
we  may  call  the  ingenuous  and  honest ;  they  do  not  mean  to 
go  wrong,  but  they  are  ignorant ;  they  cannot  quite  see  how 
this  thing,  that  thing,  and  the  other,  are  consistent ;  they  do 
not  find  fault  with  these  things ; — they  want  to  see  through 
them.  They  believe  that  God  can  explain  Himself;  they  are 
in  sympathy  with  God ;  they  wait  upon  Him ;  they  pray  over 
their  difficulties;  they  ask  God  for  light,  and  the  result  is 
that  they  soon  emerge  into  a  wide  and  wealthy  place — the 
sweep  of  their  horizon  well  defined — the  sky  above  them 
cloudless. 

To  this  class  of  objectors  let  us  say,  Dear  brethren,  we 
sympathize  with  you.  So  far  you  are  right,  and  you  will 
come  out  right.  Follow  after  God ;  grapple  your  difficulties, 
face  them,  confront  them  with  the  Scripture.  Then  when 
you  get  a  point,  keep  it ;  do  not  play  at  shuttlecock.  Re- 
member what  St.  Paul  says  to  the  Philippians — "Brethren, 
whereto  we  have  already  attained,  let  us  square  ourselves 
by  it" — Groixeiv  xavovi — let  us  keep  up  to  the  mark,  let  us 
be  fixed  in  our  conviction ;  and,  "if  in  anything  ye  be  other- 
wise minded,"  doubtful,  not  clear  as  yet,  "God  will  reveal 
even  this  unto  you." 

The  second  class  of  objectors  is  composed  of  the  disin- 
genuous, and  the  dishonest.  They  are  not  right  within. 
They  are  not  for  God  and  for  the  truth,  let  it  cut  how  it 
may.  They  are  not  manly.  They  do  not  bare  their  breasts 
to  the  knife.  They  do  not  say  "Search  me  O  God,  and  see 
and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting."  They  do  not  make 
their  objections  as  led  by  the  Spirit,  and  as  depending  on 
the  Spirit,  but  they  make  them  in  order  to  self-justification. 
Their  object  is  not  to  vindicate  God,  but  to  apologize  for 
themselves.  It  is  with  them,  self,  self,  self,  all  the  way 
through. 


236  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

How  does  this  come  about?  How  does  it  occur  that  many 
professors  of  religion,  many,  many  in  this  evil  day  are  in 
this  second  class? 

There  are  several  reasons,  but  they  all  resolve  themselves 
into  one — the  fallacy  of  living  on  an  old  experience. 

If  you  talk  with  certain  professors  of  religion,  you  always 
find  them  going  back  to  a  point  in  their  history  which  they 
call  their  conversion.  On  this  they  stake  everything.  They 
take  it  for  granted  that  their  conversion  was  right,  and 
therefore  they  are  right.  But  what  was  the  conversion?  In 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  a  mere  spasm,  a  convulsion  of  the  un- 
regenerate  moral  nature — a  mixture  of  conviction,  passion, 
and  self-righteous  resolution — the  shudder  of  a  serpent  who 
is  trying  to  right  himself  by  straight  lines.     That  is  all. 

Now  think  for  a  moment  of  the  straight  lines  that  radiate 
from  God.  Those  straight  lines  never  cross  nor  cut.  Sup- 
pose you,  my  brother,  are  right — a  little  straight  line — then 
you  will  live  in  God's  straight  line  and  no  other  can  cut  you. 
But  suppose  you  are  wrong,  a  crooked  line,  a  serpent — 
for  the  serpent  is  the  emblem  of  the  crooked  line  in  the 
Scripture — then  the  straight  lines  must  cut  you,  and  the 
more  you  twist,  the  more  they  cut  you,  until  you  drop  in 
inch  pieces  through  the  si f tings  of  the  pure  white  light  of 
God.  My  brother,  if  you  are  resting  on  a  false  experience, 
you  cannot  be  easy  or  happy  under  God's  truth.  In  spite 
of  yourself,  you  will  doubt  and  you  will  suggest  doubt — 
you  will  question  and  criticize  and  cavil.  The  only  thing  for 
you  is  to  get  rid  of  that  experience — to  sponge  it  from  your 
record — to  forget  you  ever  had  it,  and  to  begin  with  Christ. 
Dead  men  do  not  stir.  If  ever  you  see  yourself  dead  you 
will  stop  talking  about  experience.  What  experience  can 
a  corpse  have?  If  once  you  see  that  Christ  saves  of  mere 
mercv — instantly  saves  you — saves  you  not  for  your 
emotions  but  in  spite  of  your  emotions — in  spite  of  the  shal- 
low deceitfulness  of  your  tears — that  will  end  it.  You  will 
no  longer  hope,  but  trusting  in  Christ  you  will  know.  Self 
will  drop  out,  and  Christ  will  take  the  place  of  experience. 
From  that  time  you  will  live  in  the  present  and  no  longer 
in  the  past.  No  longer  will  you  inquire  what  was  true  or  un- 
true yesterday,  or  yesterday  a  week,  or  yesterday  a  twelve- 
month. Forgetting  the  things  that  are  behind,  you  will  live 
where  Paul  lived — in  God's  golden,  everlasting  now — "the 


THE   DOCTRIXRS   OF   GRACE.  237 

life  which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh,  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the 
Son  of  God  who  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me." 

But  why  has  not  God  made  things  so  clear  that  men 
cannot  object?     For  several  reasons. 

1.  The  nature  of  truth,  of  all  truth,  exposes  it  to  objec- 
tion. Truth  always  involves  more  than  appears  on  the  sur- 
face. The  Indian  savage  who  lies  upon  his  back  beneath  the 
starlit  heavens  fancies  that  the  sky  above  him  is  a  broad  blue 
blanket,  and  those  stars,  gilt  spangles  loosely  scattered  over 
it.  To  La  Place  or  Herschel  the  same  heavens  are  depths 
of  infinite  space  crowded  with  rolling  worlds,  each  one  of 
which  describes  an  exact  mathematical  circle — each  one  of 
which  is  subordinate — satellite  to  planet,  planet  to  sun,  and 
sun  to  far-binding  Pleiad.  Now  to  this  scheme  of  La  Place 
and  Herschel.  the  savage  would  have  many  objections.  In 
contrast  with  his  first  untutored  impression,  how  would  it  be 
possible  for  him  to  prefer  the  slow  results  of  calculation  and 
the  minute  reports  which  come  to  him  through  the  lenses 
of  the  telescope? 

Precisely  so  is  it  with  the  Bible,  that  heaven  of  the  moral 
universe.  Like  the  savage,  men  look  upon  its  statements  as 
a  congeries  of  isolated  truths,  confused,  conflicting,  con- 
tradictory, scattered  over  the  goo  pages  less  or  more  of  this 
book.  The  idea  that  there  is  a  system  here — that  that  sys- 
tem lies  open  to  investigation — that  it  can  be  measured  in 
all  its  expanses  and  fixed  in  all  its  details,  and  that  in  the 
line  of  patient  discovery  each  truth  falls  into  place  and 
marches  in  the  orbit  of  undeviating  purpose  around  the  cen- 
tral and  all-dominating  thought  of  God,  is  an  idea  which 
isrnorant.  hasty  and  unthoughtful  men  have  overlooked,  and 
vet.  if  God  be  like  Himself,  and  if  the  God  of  the  universe 
be  the  God  of  the  Bible,  what  other  thin?  can  be?  You 
must  either  consent  to  investigate — to  use  the  mind  that 
God  has  given  you  upon  the  things  of  God — patiently  to 
learn  in  a  "comparison  of  spiritual  things  with  spiritual." 
or  else,  mv  brother,  like  the  untutored  savage,  your  inde- 
pendent and  undisciplined  free  thought  will  check  you  at 
the  threshold  of  moral  advancement  and  bar  you  from  the 
knowledge  of  what  God  is  forever.  But, 

2.  The  nature  of  fallen  man  prevents  God  from  making 
things  so  clear  to  him  that  he  cannot  object. 


238  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

The  nature  of  fallen  man  is  opposed  to  God ;  and  that 
opposition  lies  in  the  mind  to  begin  with.  It  is  the  carnal 
mind  that  is  enmity  against  God.  Do  you  know  anything 
from  experience  of  the  difficulty  of  stating  yourself  to  men 
who  dislike  you,  who  have  prejudged  you  and  whose  inter- 
est it  is  to  make  you  out  wrong?  That  is  the  difficulty,  on 
an  infinite  scale,  which  God  has  to  contend  with.  God  is 
right,  and  He  must  put  Himself  right.  But  that  puts  the 
sinner  wrong  and  then  the  sinner  must  justify  himself.  It 
has  been  truly  said  to  be  "a  law  of  man's  intelligent  nature 
that  when  accused  of  wrong  either  by  conscience  or  by 
some  other  agent,  he  must  either  confess  or  justify  himself." 
The  latter  is  the  sinner's  alternative.  This  is  the  reason 
why  he  has  so  many  objections  and  why  he  flies  from  one 
to  another,  as  if  the  aggregate  of  his  objections  would  make 
up  for  the  intrinsic  weakness  of  each.  Alas !  behind  all 
this  dishonesty,  behind  all  this  evasion  there  is  that  which 
nothing  but  the  touch  and  the  renewal  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
can  cure — the  inveterate  opposition  of  the  man  to  God. 

All  objections  to  the  Christian  system  are,  in  the  last  anal- 
ysis, objections  to  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  atonement. 
Hence  the  pertinency  of  the  question,  "What  think  ye  of 
Christ?"  What  think  ye  of  His  Deity?  What  think  ye  of 
His  dying?  What  think  ye  of  the  nature  and  the  limitations 
of  His  work? 

"What  think  ye  of  Christ?  is  the  test 
To  try  both  your  state  and  your  scheme ; 
You  cannot  be  right  in  the  rest 
Ubless  you  think  rightly  of  Him." 

This  being  the  case,  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  removing  a  sin- 
ner's objections — in  reducing  him  from  a  state  of  combative- 
ness  to  one  of  willing  reception — aims  from  first  to  last,  at 
setting  Christ  before  him.  "Casting  down  imaginations," 
says  the  apostle,  "and  every  high  thing  that  exalteth  itself 
against  the  knowledge  of  God  and  bringing  into  captivity 
every  thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ."  My  brother,  my 
sister,  what  you  want  is  the  obedience  of  Christ — the  obedi- 
ence of  which  Christ  is  the  source  and  object — the  obedience 
which  comes  from  Christ  and  terminates  on  Christ.  Christ 
is  the  end  of  nature's  quest  and  questionings— the  all-aton- 
ing Christ. 


THE   DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE.  239 

Let  us,  then,  for  a  few  moments,  fix  our  eyes  on  Christ — 
on  Christ  in  His  most  central  and  soul-saving  aspect — on 
Christ  exemplifying  these  three  things: 

I.     The  Truth  of  the  Atonement. 
II.     Its  Holiness. 
III.     Its  Saving  Power. 

I.  The  Truth  of  the  Atonement — what  it  is  not,  what  it 
is — and, 

First.  It  is  not  what  is  called  Humanitarian-ism — that 
Christ  was  a  good  Man,  divine  in  some  sense,  who  appeared 
among  us  as  an  example,  to  show  us  how  to  be  holy ;  so  that 
if  we  follow  Him  and  do  the  best  we  can,  we  shall  be  saved. 
That  this  is  not  what  the  Bible  means  by  the  cross  is  evi- 
dent— 

(1).  From  the  fact  that  it  leaves  the  question  of  past 
sin  untouched.  We  know  that  Lady  Macbeth,  in  utterance 
of  the  necessity  of  nature,  cries — 

"Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 
Clean  from  my  hand?" 

It  is  a  question  of  washing  away  blood  which  has  already 
stained. 

(2.)  This  notion  is  untrue  because  it  mocks  us.  To  pre- 
sent a  faultless  model  of  perfection  to  a  fallen  creature  help- 
lessly depraved — to  say  to  him,  "Be  like  this,"  "Do  like 
this,"  is  to  make  ghastly  sport  of  his  misery. 

(3.)  The  life  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  down  here  was 
a  life  of  suffering  unto  death.  What  sort  of  an  example 
does  that  afford  to  you  and  to  me  who  wish  to  escape  death  ? 
What  sort  of  an  example  to  a  lost  sinner  is  a  crucifix? 

(4.)  An  atonement  in  which  we  follow  Christ  and  do  the 
best  we  can,  is  an  atonement  in  which  man  and  not  Christ 
is  the  Atoner.  We  follow  Christ !  At  what  distance  ?  At 
our  own  distance.  Then  the  distance  mav  widen — the  in- 
terval may  stretch,  until  at  last  Christ  minified  to  a  mere 
speck,  a  point  upon  the  dim  horizon,  passes  out  and  vanishes 
clean  from  His  own  atonement  and  leaves  behind  just  this — 
"Man,  woman,  do  the  best  you  can,  or  try  to  do  it,  or  do 
something,  and  vou  shall  be  saved." 


240  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Second.  The  Atonement  is  not  a  device  of  general  and 
governmental  benevolence — a  mere  theatrical  display  cal- 
culated to  make  an  impression  on  the  universe,  and  so  to 
prevent  the  spread  of  sin,  bring  sinners  to  repentance,  and 
secure  harmony  and  happiness  upon  the  largest  scale. 

It  is  well  known  that  this  has  been  a  popular  and  a 
widespread  representation :  it  is  an  untrue  representa- 
tion, however,  because  it  is  based  on  the  following  untrue 
assumptions. 

(i.)  That  sin  does  not  deserve  to  be  punished  be- 
cause it  is  sin,  but  only  because  of  its  consequences. 

(2.)  That  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  eternal  justice 
in  God  striking  down  upon  sin :  God  is  breadth  only, — 
love,  an  horizontal  line  and  not  a  cross — that  there  is  no 
perpendicular  in  Him.  "Justice,"  say  the  teachers  of 
our  modern  liberalistic  thought,  "is  benevolence  guided 
by  wisdom" ;  in  other  words,  it  is  a  general  good  will  and 
good  nature  in  God  which  keeps  up  a  government  in  or- 
der to  the  happiness  of  His  creatures.  God,  then,  exists 
for  His  creatures ;  He  is  not  His  own  highest  end.  And 
God  is  righteous  not  because  His  holy  nature  compels 
Him  to  be,  but  because  the  interests  of  a  governmental 
policy  demand  it. 

The  theory  stript  of  its  plausibilities,  and  stated  in 
broad  terms  and  carried  to  its  logical  results,  is  this: 
Happiness  is  the  end  of  creation — in  order  to  secure  happi- 
ness there  must  be  righteousness — righteousness,  therefore, 
is  a  means  to  an  end.  In  other  words,  virtue  is  simply 
expediency,  and  the  question  of  right  and  wrong  is  simply 
a  question  of  profit  or  loss. 

Such,  squarely  stated,  is  the  modern  and  popular  notion 
of  the  Atonement — a  notion  born  of  phdosoohv  and  not  of 
Christ — a  notion  without  a  word  of  Scripture  to  support  it 
— a  notion  utterly  repuennnt  to  the  sentiments  of  everv 
honest  heart — a  way  since  sin  is  in  the  universe,  not  of 
cominrr  straight  out  and  dealings  with  sin ;  but  of  getting 
around  it.  A  wav  of  doing  something:,  no  one  knows  what, 
but  something  of  which  the  cross  is  a  voucher,  bv  which 
the  machinerv  of  the  universe  is  kept  running,  its  ruin 
is  averted  and  a   door  is  opened;  no  one  knows   exactly 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  241 

where,  and  no  one  knows  exactly  on  what  conditions,  to 
God. 

Before  dismissing  this  theory  of  the  Atonement  it  is  per- 
tinent to  add  these  two  remarks: 

In  the  first  place  this  theory  goes  far,  and  more  than 
far  to  explain  the  perolexity  of  the  masses  under  certain 
modern  sermons.  Many  men  and  many  Christians  complain 
that  they  cannot  understand  what  is  said — that  they  cannot 
take  it  away.  Thev  think  the  fault  is  in  themselves,  their 
ignorance,  their  obtuseness,  but  it  is  not  so.  A  straight 
line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points.  The  Gospel 
is  a  straight  line,  and  anybody  can  understand  a  straight 
line.  The  fault,  in  these  cases,  is  not  so  much  with  the 
people  as  with  the  pulpit.  It  is  because  the  preacher  is 
muddled  himself.  It  is  because  he  is  floundering  in  a  net- 
work of  moral  absurdities  which  have  no  coherence,  no 
beginning,  nor  middle  nor  end.  It  is  because  he  is  trying 
to  preach  a  philosophy  which  is  not  gospel — which  is  any- 
thing but  the  gospel,  and  which  gives  an  open  contradic- 
tion to  the  Bible,  and  to  common  sense,  and  God. 

Another  remark  proper  at  this  point  is  this — The  dishon- 
esty now  prevalent  in  our  churches,  the  moral  obliquity,  the 
squint  in  the  eyes,  common  to  so  many  professors  of  re- 
ligion, is  chargeable  to  this  false  theory  of  the  atonement. 
Men  listen  to  the  preaching  and  they  get  a  notion  that  the 
universe  is  a  machine — that  God  is  running  it,  and  that 
He  is  behind  pulling  wires.  What  is  the  inference  from 
this?  Is  it  not  that  they  too  may  pull  wires?  Men  listen 
to  the  preaching  and  they  get  the  notion  that  salvation  is 
a  piece  of  diplomacy.  God  is  a  diplomat,  why  should  not 
they  be  diplomats?  God's  virtue  is  "what  is  expedient;" 
why  should  not  their  virtue  be  "what  is  expedient?"  With 
God  the  end  covers  the  crookedness  of  the  means,  why  with 
them  should  not  the  end  cover  the  crookedness  of  the  means  ? 
Nothing  is  more  certain  than  this,  that  men  will  be  politic 
so  long  as  they  believe  in  a  politic  God. 

Third. — Having  thus  cleared  the  ground  before  us —  hav- 
ing stated  what  the  atonement  is  not,  it  will  not  be  difficult 
now  to  state  what  it  is.  All  truth  is  quickly  stated,  and  this 
truth  lies  in  one  word,  substitution.      It  is  put  with  all 


242  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

possible  plainness  in  the  parallel,  the  sublime  equation  of 
2  Cor.  v:2i,  "For  He  hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us" — 
identified  Him  with  it  so  as  to  make  Him  wholly  chargeable 
therewith — "that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  Him," — that  we  might  be  identified  and  wholly 
chargeable  with  righteousness. 

The  doctrine  stated  in  contrast  for  distinctness  is  this, 
(i.)   Sin,  because  it  is  sin,  must  be  punished. (a) 
(2.)  Justice,  because  it  is  justice,  must  punish  sin.(b) 
(3.)   If  sin   is  on  the   sinner,   then   justice  must   strike 
through  both  sin  and  the  sinner  who  carries  it. (r) 

(4.)  If  the  sin  of  the  believing  sinner  is  taken  from  his 
shoulders  and  laid  upon  the  Son  of  God,  then  justice,  still 
following  after  the  sin,  must  strike  through  the  sin  and  the 
person  of  the  Son  of  God  now  underneath  it. (d) 

(5).  When  justice  once  strikes  the  Son  of  God,  justice  ex- 
hausts itself.     Sin  is  amerced  in  an  Infinite  Object,    (e). 

(6).  Not  only  is  this  true,  but  more — not  only  does  justice 
exhaust  itself,  but  striking  an  Infinite  Object,  justice  meets  a 
rebound,  is  reflected  back  upon  God  ,and  now  God  must  re- 
ward Christ,  as  the  substitute,  for  His  overplusage  of  infi- 
nite merits.   (/).     Therefore, 

(a).  Rom.  vi  :23 :  The  wages  of  sin,  the  thing  due  to  it,  which 
must  be  paid,  is  death. 

(b).  Gen.  xviii  :25 :  "Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do 
right  f"     Pay  sin  what  is  due  to  it? 

(c).  Ezek.  xviii  :2o:  "The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die."  Ex. 
xxxiv  :7 :     "He  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty." 

(d).  Isa.  liii  :S :  "He  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  He 
was  bruised  for  our  iniquities ;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was 
upon  Him,  and  with  His  stripes  we  are  healed." 

(e).  Rom.  viii  13 :  "God  sending  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of 
sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh."  Zech.  xiii:7: 
"Awake,  O  sword,  against  my  shepherd,  and  against  the  Man  that 
is  My  Fellow,  saith  the  Lord."  But  this  Man  after  He  had  offered 
one  sacrifice  for  sins  for  a  finality,  sat  down  on  the  right  of  God, 
Heb.  x:i2.  For  by  one  offering  He  hath  perfected  forever  His 
saints.    Heb.  x:i4. 

(/).  Isa.  xl:io,  lxii:ii:  "His  reward  is  with  Him,  and  His 
recompense  (see  margin)  before  Him."  Isa.  Iiii :  1 2 :  "Therefore 
will  I  divide  Him  a  portion  with  the  great,"  &c.  Phil,  ii  :g : 
"Wherefore  God  hath  highly  exalted  Him,"  &c.  Heb.  ii  :p : 
"Crowned  Him  with  glory  and  honor." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  243 

(7).  The  moment  the  believing  sinner  accepts  Christ  as 
his  substitute,  he  finds  himself  not  only  freed  from  his 
sin,  but  re-carded.  He  gets  all  heaven  because  of  the  glory 
and  merits  of  Christ,  (g) 

The  Atonement,  then,  which  we  preach  is  one  of  abso- 
lute exchange. (h)  It  is  that  Christ  took  our  place  literally, 
in  order  that  we  might  take  His  place  literally — that  God 
regarded  and  treated  Christ  as  the  sinner  and  that  He  re- 
gards and  treats  the  believing  sinner  as  Christ. (i)  From 
the  moment  we  believe,  God  looks  upon  us  as  if  we  were 
Christ.  (;)  He  takes  it  as  if  Christ's  atonement  had  been 
our  atonement,  and  as  if  Christ's  life  had  been  our  life 
and  He  beholds,  accepts,  blesses  and  rewards  as  though 
all  Christ  was  and  did  had  been  ours.(fc) 

Perhaps  an  illustration  here  may  serve  to  put  the  fact 
in  clearer  light.  Near  the  village  of  Portage,  on  the  Genesee 
river,  there  is  a  bridge.  This  bridge  spans  a  chasm  of  six 
hundred  feet,  and  is  entirely  constructed  of  timbers.  These 
timbers  are  so  placed  that  any  single  one  may  be  removed 
without  interfering  with  the  others,  and  so,  as  timbers  rot, 
they  are  replaced,  and  the  bridge  itself  is  rendered  perpetual. 
Now,  suppose  a  rotten  timber  somewhere  in  the  Portage 
bridge, — the  workmen  are  called  together  and  that  timber 
is  taken  out  and  a  sound  timber  is  put  in  its  place.  What 
part,  after  that,  does  the  rotten  timber  play  in  sustaining 
the  bridge?  What  is  it  that  sustains  the  bridge  now?  The 
sound  timber — the  substitute.  The  rotten  timber  lies  there, 
on  the  muddy  bank  of  the  river.  It  is  wholly  thrown  out. 
Now  that  will  do  as  a  representation  of  the  sinner,  and 
the  bridge  of  Adam's  broken  covenant  of  works.  The  sin- 
ner is  a  rotten  timber.    He  is  wholly  worthless.    God  comes 

(#)•  John  xvii:22:  "The  glory  which  Thou  gavest  Me,  I  have 
given  them."  Rom.  v:i7:  "Shall  reign  in  life  by  One,  Jesus 
Christ." 

(h).  1  Pet.  Hi:  18:  "For  Christ  also  hath  suffered,  the  Just  for 
{vitip,     instead  of)  the  unjust,  to  bring  us  to  God." 

(i).  2  Cor.  v:2i:     "He  hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us,"  &c. 

(/).  1  John  iv.17:  "As  He  is  so  are  we  in  this  world."  John 
xvii  :23  ;  i  Cor.  xii  :i2 ;  Eph.  v  .30. 

(k).  Rom.  v:io.  "Justified  by  His  blood;  saved  by  His  life." 
Rom.  v:2i:  "Grace  reigns  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life, 
by  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord," 


244  THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE. 

along  and  throws  him  out.  He  supersedes  him.  He  puts 
Girist  in  his  place.  He  lays  on  Christ  the  weight  of  the 
bridge  of  salvation,  and  Christ  alone  sustains  it.  Your  good 
works,  my  brother,  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  your 
jutification  before  God  than  the  worthless,  rotten  timber 
lying  on  the  mudflats  of  the  Genesee  has  to  do  with  the 
complete   and   colossal    structure   which   bridges   its   banks. 

We  then  are  saved,  straight  through  eternity,  by  what 
the  Son  of  God  has  done  in  our  place.  "By  Him  all  that 
believe  are  justified  from  all  tilings."  Other  considerations 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It  matters  nothing  what  we 
have  been,  what  we  are,  or  what  we  shall  be.  From  the 
moment  we  believe  on  Christ,  we  are  forever,  in  God's 
sight,  as  Christ. 

Of  course  it  is  involved  in  this  that  men  are  saved,  not  by 
preparing  first,  that  is  by  repenting,  and  praying,  and  read- 
ing the  Bible,  and  then  trusting  Christ ;  nor  by  the  con- 
verse of  this,  that  is  by  trusting  Christ  first  and  then  prepar- 
ing something — repentance,  reformation,  good  works — which 
God  will  accept :  but  that  sinners  are  saved  irrespective  of 
tt-hat  they  are — how  they  feel — what  they  have  done — what 
they  hope  to  do — by  trusting  on  Christ  and  that  only.  That 
Christ,  and  Christ  alone,  stands  between  any  sinner  and  the 
Lake  of  Fire,  and  that  the  instant  Christ  is  seen  and  rested 
on,  the  soul's  eternity,  by  God's  free  promise,  and  from 
regard  to  what  the  Substitute  has  done,  is  fixed. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  Vicarious  Atonement,  a  doctrine 
which,  for  grandeur,  for  simplicity,  and  comprehensiveness, 
stands  peerless  and  alone — God's  thought  in  felt,  in  ac- 
knowledged, in  adorable  contrast  to  all  creature  philoso- 
phies— God's  thought  which  solves  all  problems  and  allays 
all  apprehensions  and.  beyond  all  power  of  tongue  to  tell 
it.  satisfies  the  heart.     But 

II.  Is  it  a  holv  doctrine?  Objection  has  been  brought 
against  it.  It  has  been  said  that  such  an  exchange  as  this,  in 
which  the  innocent  is  made  to  suffer  for  the  guilty,  is  un- 
just; that  it  is  exceptional,  arbitrary,  contrary  to  all  pro- 
cesses of  human  law ;  that  it  is  at  variance  with  the  moral 
feelings  of  mankind,  and  that  it  tends  to  immorality. 

To  this  objection,  so  succinctly  stated,  it  is  easy  to  reply. 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  245 

1.  So  far  from  being  exceptional,  the  principle  of  repre- 
sentation runs  through  the  universe.  It  is  the  principle  on 
which  the  world  is  built.  When  a  father  commits  a  crime 
his  whole  family  sink  in  the  social  scale,  though  innocent. 
When  a  father  is  lifted  to  office  or  to  honor  his  whole 
family  are  lifted  without  merit  of  their  own.  These  ex- 
amples go  to  prove  that  so  far  from  being  exceptional,  the 
scheme  on  which  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  acts  as  agent,  or 
trustee,  or  substitute  of  His  people  is  congruous  not  only 
with  the  whole  Scriptural  theology,  but  with  what  we 
around  us.  and  with  the  very  nature  of  things.  If  we  fell 
by  Adam's  sin  without  having  a  hand  in  it,  why  may  we 
not  be  raised  again  by  Christ's  righteousness  without  having 
any  righteousness  of  our  own  ?     But. 

2.  The  substitution  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  not  arbi- 
trary. He  was  not  forced  to  suffer.  He  was  not  dragged 
an  unwilling  victim  to  the  altar,  and  there,  in  spite  of  all 
His  pleadings,  and  of  all  His  protestations,  offered  up.  On 
the  contrary,  nothing  was  ever  so  voluntary  as  the  death 
of  Christ — "I  delight  to  do  Thy  will" — "How  am  I  strai:. 
until  it  be  accomplished?"  He  loved  us  and  gave  Himself 
for  us.  Volenti  nulla  fit  injuria.  He  is  not  wronged  who 
gives  his  free  consent.  Christ  was  master  of  His  own  life 
as  Lord  of  all.  He  had  power  to  lay  it  down  and  to  take  it 
up  again,  and  in  this  supreme  devotement  the  Blessed  Trinity 
concurred. 

3.  The  substitution  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  indeed 
contrary  to  our  processes  of  law,  but  not  because  it  contra- 
venes them ;  it  rises  above  and  pas^es  beyond  their  finite 
limitations.  That  is  all.  It  is  readily  admitted  that  no 
human  justice  could  hang  one  man  because  another  man 
had  committed  murder;  but  what  to  human  justice,  ham- 
pered by  conditions,  is  impossible,  is  possible  with  God. 

One  thing :  human  justice  has  no  power  over  life ;  the 
State  is  not  absolute,  but  God  is.  The  disposal  of  life, 
which  is  not  man's  prerogative,  belongs  to  God. 

Another  thing:  Under  a  human  government,  no  one  has 
a  right,  even  voluntarily,  to  give  up  his  life  under  law  for 
another ;  for  man  has  not  power  over  his  own  life  when  it 
comes  to  justice,  but  Christ  had  power  over  His. 

Once  more :  Under  a  human  government,  if  one  dies  for 


246  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

another,  one  life  is  lost.  The  victim  perishes,  and  there  is 
no  surplus  gain  to  the  universe.  But,  in  the  glorious  Atone- 
ment, no  life  is  lost,  no  victim  perishes,  for  Christ  who 
goes  down  into  the  grave  rises  again  triumphant — "dieth  no 
more" — death  hath  no  more  dominion  over  Him. 

4.  The  principle  of  substitution,  so  far  from  being  at 
variance  with  the  feelings  of  a  holy  and  a  humble  heart,  is, 
of  all  principles  that  which  such  a  heart  must  welcome  as 
the  only  possible  extrication  from  the  agonies  of  conviction. 
''The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die!"  Has  God  said  it? 
Then  it  must  be.  Then  the  soul  must  die,  either  in  its 
separate  personality,  or  in  the  Larger  Personality  which 
covers  it — either  in  itself,  or  in  the  Head  of  the  great  family 
to  which,  believing,  it  belongs.  Amid  the  growing  light, 
this  sun-like  truth  stands  clear,  Die  the  sinner  must,  or 
Jesus! 

5.  The  doctrine  of  Substitution  does  not  tend  to  immor- 
ality. Objection  has  sometimes  been  expressed  like  this — 
"If  I  understand  it,  I,  by  trusting,  though  the  worst  and 
most  abandoned  sinner  out  of  hell,  am  saved — saved  in  a 
clock-tick — saved  as  truly  and  as  certainly  as  Paul  himself, 
who  is  in  glory.  If  I  understand  it,  the  whole  question  of 
my  destiny  is  settled,  over  and  done,  the  moment  I  con- 
sent to  believe !  Now,  I  am  surprised  at  this  doctrine.  It 
takes  away  my  breath.  I  am  afraid  of  it.  It  seems  to  me, 
if  I  knew  that  my  eternity  were  settled,  I  should  run  straight 
into  excess — I  should  argue  "It  makes  no  difference — I 
am  saved  anyhow — a  little  sin  more  or  less  will  not  count." 

The  answer  to  this  objection  is  that  it  is  the  result  01  a 
truth  but  half  apprehended.  The  sinner  who  makes  it  is 
like  a  man  who  is  looking  at  one  arm  of  a  walking-beam,  he 
does  not  know  how  the  arm  on  the  other  side  works.  It 
is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  settling  things  upon  a  righteous 
basis  tends  to  laxity.  The  fact  is  just  the  reverse.  Take  an 
illustration  from  the  angels.  Their  destiny  is  settled  and 
has  been  settled  for  ages.  In  all  heaven  there  is  not  a  doubt. 
No  angel  ever  doubts  his  eternal  salvation ;  but  that  does 
not  tend  to  make  angels  immoral.  Take  an  illustration 
from  the  case  of  a  wife.  Will  any  one  say  that  for  a  woman 
to  know  she  is  married,  and  fixed  by  a  permanent  tie,  tends 
to  make  her  immoral?    Does  not  every  one  know  that  the 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  247 

possibility  of  divorce  entertained,  makes  people  immoral — 
that  doubt  in  this  thing,  is  its  death?  Does  not  every  one 
know  that  the  strongest  bond  of  all  social  life  and  the 
surest  defence  of  all  social  honor  is  the  fiat  "whom  God 
hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put  asunder?" 

But  argue  the  question  a  moment,  along  the  line  of  its 
merits. 

(1.)  To  trust  in  Christ  is  to  obey  God.  "This  is  His  com- 
mandment that  we  should  believe  on  the  name  of  His  Son 
Jesus  Christ."  Without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please  Him; 
hence  men  must  be  brought  to  the  obedience  of  faith.  When 
they  believe,  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  they  begin  to 
obey.  But,  does  beginning  to  obey  God  tend  to  make  men 
immoral  ? 

(2.)  To  trust  Christ  is  to  draw  near  to  Christ;  but  how 
can  that  make  men  immoral?  Faith  is  nothing  but  coming 
to  Christ  under  the  attractions  of  a  Divine,  unspeakable,  all 
holy,  all  compelling  love.  It  is  the  rebound  of  gratitude  in 
us  towards  Him  who  died  for  us.  "To  Whom  coming  as 
to  a  Living  Stone."  Coming,  coming,  always  coming — how 
can  that  make  men  immoral? 

(3.)  To  trust  Christ  is  to  yield  to  the  Spirit  of  God.  For 
the  first  time  in  your  life,  instead  of  resisting,  you  yield. 
What  is  the  result?  You  keep  yielding.  More  and  more 
you  give  yourself  up  to  the  Spirit's  control.  You  are  taught 
by  the  Spirit.  You  are  led  by  the  Spirit.  You  are  strength- 
ened by  the  Spirit.  You  are  filled  with  the  Spirit.  You 
are  born  again  of  the  Spirit.  How  can  that  make  you  im- 
moral ? 

A  man  once  said  to  Mr.  Spurgeon  "If  I  believed  as  you 
do,  in  a  finished  atonement,  I  would  live  as  I  liked — the 
thing  being  settled,  I  would  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  sin." 
"Yes,  said  Mr.  Spurgeon,  you  would  do  so  because  you  are 
yet  an  unregenerated  man.  If  you  had  the  faith  of  God's 
elect  you  would  live  for  Him  who  had  saved  you." 

But  finally,  to  end  discussion  by  an  ultimate  appeal,  the 
question  whether  Substitution  is  a  holy  doctrine,  is  the 
question,  whether  the  Bible,  which  proclaims  it,  is  a  holy 
book.  It  will  be  noticed  that  not  one  of  the  objections 
canvassed  is  brought  forward  from  the  Scripture.     They 


248  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

are  all  of  them  objections,  speculations,  reasonings  and  cavils 
of  the  carnal  heart.  To  confute  the  Scripture,  men  must 
bring  forward  Scripture.  Until  they  do  this,  the  doctrine 
of  Vicarious  Atonement  will  stand.  It  will  stand  because  the 
Bible  teaches  it ;  because  what  the  Bible  teaches,  God  teaches ; 
and  because  what  God  teaches  must  eternally  be  true. 

III.  Is  this  doctrine  saving?  God  says  so.  Millions  in 
the  past  have  proved  it.  Millions  in  the  present  are  em- 
barked upon  it.  You  yourself  have  known  many  who  have 
died  trusting  it.  Not  one  of  all  these  has  it  failed.  It 
will  not  fail  you.  Try  it,  my  brother.  You  never  have 
tried  it.  You  never  have  dropped  yourself  a  dead  weight 
on  the  hands  of  Christ  and  gone  away  believing  that  salva- 
tion was  settled.  You  never  have  done  this,  and  yet  this 
is  the  point,  the  single  point  of  the  Gospel.  "He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life !" 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  249 

Imputation. 
ADAM  AXD  CHRIST. 

Rom.  v:i9. 

"For  as  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners,  so 
by   the  obedience  of   One  shall   many  be   made   right-. 

What  has  Adam's  sin  to  do  with  mine?  Do  I  say,  "Noth- 
ing— I  have  enough  to  do  to  take  care  of  myself?"  Then 
let  me  consider.  If  I  have  to  take  care  of  myself,  I  have 
to  saze  myself.  But  I  cannot  save  myself,  therefore,  I  am 
thrown  back  on  Another. 

That  shows  me  that  I  am  not  independent,  but  dependent 
on  some  one — on  some  thing  outside  of  myself  for  a  happy 
destiny.    That  brings  in  Christ  and  Christ  brings  in  Adam. 

The  Principle  of  representation  lies  at  the  basis  of  all 
religion.  This  principle  wrecked  us — this  principle  will 
have  to  rescue  us.  That  is  the  thought,  on  the  expansion  of 
which  I  wish  to  fix  your  attention  to-day. 

Two  things ;  if  we  learn  them,  will  teach  us  the  deepest 
practical  wisdom — Sin  and  Grace.  Xo  one  ever  measured 
either  of  them,  except  One,  and  He.  when  He  measured 
them  was  in  a  bloody  sweat  and  poured  out  His  soul  unto 
death, — George  Herbert  quaintly  says : 

"Philosophers  have  measured  mountains 

Fathomed  the  depths  of  Seas,  of  States,  of  Kings, 

Walked  with  a  Staff  to  heaven — and  traced  fountains, 

But  there  are  two  vast  specious  things 

The  which  to  measure  it  doth  more  behove ; 

Yet  few  there  are  that  sound  them, — Six  and  Love." 

I.  Sin :  Sin  came  into  this  world,  according  to  the 
Apostle,  by  Adam,  "Wherefore  as  by  one  man  sin  entered 
into  the  world  and  death  by  sin ;  and  so  death  passed  upon 
all  men  for  that  all  men  sinned." 


250  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

In  this  doctrine  of  St.  Paul  the  whole  world  has  con- 
curred. It  is  the  general  and  unquestioned  conviction  of 
men  that  they  are  sinful,  and  therefore  guilty,  and  that  this 
sinfulness  and  guilt  are  a  contradiction  to  pure  being,  and 
a  defect  and  calamity,  involving  misery  here  and  misery 
hereafter. 

All  men  do  not  see  this  thus  clearly.  The  darker  and 
more  degraded  the  heathenism  of  men — the  farther  they 
have  wandered  from  the  central  light  of  revelation,  the  less 
clear  has  been  their  knowledge  and  their  conviction  upon 
this  subject, — but  no  race  or  individual  of  men  has  ever 
existed  without  the  consciousness  of  being  fallen — abnormal, 
impure,  wicked  and  therefore  liable  to  just  and  condign 
punishment :  sin  is  a  fact  so  patent,  and  sinfulness  a  condi- 
tion so  felt  that  the  missionary  to  benighted  lands  requires 
to  prove  nothing — to  enter  upon  no  elaborate  argument. 
His  way  is  already  prepared  and  he  has  only  to  appeal  to 
conscience,  and  say — "Sinner!"  to  awaken  the  echo  of  the 
response — "I  am  guilty!" 

It  is  a  fallen  world.  Death  is  in  it.  Aversion  to  God  and 
holiness  is  in  it.    Lust  and  crime  are  in  it.    Misery  is  in  it. 

Now  it  is  evident  to  the  most  opaque  intelligence  that 
this  is  not  only  a  contradiction,  but  the  precise  contradic- 
tion, opposite,  and  contrast  to  a  perfect  state  of  existence 
and  being.  If  any  man  should  dare  to  assert  that  this 
world  is  a  heaven — meaning  coolly  and  deliberately  to  as- 
sert a  fact,  he  would  be  regarded  as  a  fit  candidate  for  the 
Insane  Asylum. 

This  world  is  not  a  heaven.  It  is  not  the  perfect  abode 
of  perfect  creatures.  It  is  imperfect,  marred  and  blighted. 
And  those  who  live  here  are  sad  and  suffering  inhabitants 
of  a  dilapidated  habitation. 

Is  it  not  so?  Is  death  in  heaven?  Are  there  grave  diggers 
and  funeral  processions  there?  Are  there  black  draperies 
and  angels  wearing  widows'  weeds  there?  Is  there  hatred 
of  God  and  weariness  of  His  service  and  every  sort  of 
excuse  for  evading  it  there  ?  Do  lust  and  theft  reign  there, 
and  cruelty  and  crime  and  outrage  as — when  law  does  not 
restrain  them — they  do  on  this  planet?  Are  sickness, 
pain,  loss,  injury,  agony,  torture  household  words  in 
heaven  ? 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  251 

Who  does  not  know  they  are  not?  Who  needs  even  a 
Bible  to  give  him  the  innate  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
these  things  are  not  perfection — but  the  opposite  and  the 
intense  opposite  of  perfection?  And  who  is  so  blind  as  not 
to  discover  that  these  things  are,  and  must  be,  the  result 
of  a  break — a  collapse — a  fall  somewhere  from  what  must 
have  been  the  normal  condition  of  a  creature  existence? 

The  idea  of  God  is  innate.  It  is  not  discovered.  It  is 
not  taught.  It  is  in  us — part  of  our  being — our  creature- 
hood. 

But  "God"  means  "good,"  "perfect,"  "holy."  What  God 
does,  then,  must  be  good,  perfect,  holy — what  God  makes 
must  be  good,  perfect,  holy.  Then  when  God  made  man,  He 
must  have  made  him  good,  perfect,  holy.  All  this,  we 
get  from  instinct — from  reason — from  what  we  call  Natu- 
ral religion. 

Then,  when  we  come  to  the  Bible — which  is  God  speaking 
to  us,  and  imparting  information  to  us — we  find  the  Bible 
running  along  the  same  lines  and  shedding  light  on  every 
step  of  the  logic. 

The  Bible  says  that  heaven  is  perfection — no  death 
there — no  sickness — no  tears — no  sorrow — no  sin.  Abso- 
lute blessedness,  because  absolute  conformity  to  and  com- 
munion with  God. 

The  Bible  says  that  this  world,  at  first,  was  a  miniature 
heaven.  It  was  so  before  Satan  fell  down  into  it  and  filled 
it  with  monsters  and  made  it  without  form  and  void.  It 
was  so,  afterward  when  reconstructed — when  Adam  was 
placed  in  Eden,  the  picture  of  heaven — himself  the  Image 
and  likeness  of  God. 

The  Bible  tells  us  that  Adam, — being  made  a  perfect 
creature,  and  left  under  light  and  law  to  the  freedom  of  his 
own  will — instead  of  running  in  the  current  of  that  holy 
will — deliberately  reversed  himself.  Nothing  was  taken 
from  him — no  force  was  applied  to  him.  He  was  not  de- 
serted— he  was  not  abandoned — no  influence  of  God's 
Spirit  was  taken  from  him.  He  simply — tempted  to  do  it — 
did  himself  an  outrage.  In  the  presence  of  a  Command- 
ment which  his  nature  inclined  him  to  obey,  he  committed  a 
sin  against  his  nature — he  reversed  himself — 'threw  his 
whole  constitution  into  convulsion,  disorder — a  chaos,  and 


252  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

opened  the  outlet  of  a  ruin  which  has  engulfed  his  race — 
so  that,  begetting  sons — as  we  read  in  Gen.  v,  in  his  "own 
likeness" — no  longer  in  God's  likeness — men  come  into  the 
world  as  fallen  as  Adam  and  under  his  curse. 

We  are  fallen  then  because  Adam  fell.  In  the  3rd  Chap- 
ter of  Genesis  Adam  is  presented  as  a  Public  Person — the 
human  race,  as  a  whole,  being  involved  in  the  transactions 
there  recorded.   This  appears  : 

1.  Because  his  name  is  generic — Adam  is  the  Hebrew 
for  "man,"  and  signifies  red  earth  or  dust — it  is  the  race 
name  as  well  as  his  name. 

2.  All  his  posterity  are  equally  involved  in  the  sentence — 
the  pain  of  childbirth — the  curse  of  the  ground — the  obliga- 
tion to  live  by  toil  and  sweat — and  physical  death. 

3.  All  his  posterity  have  an  equal  interest  in  the  promise 
of  the  woman's  seed  which  was  then  graciously  made  to 
Adam. 

He  therefore  was  our  Federal  Head —  i.  e.,  he  stood  for 
us — to  transact  for  us,  so  that — if  he  obeyed — we  should 
all  be  holy  creatures — confirmed,  as  he  would  have  been,  in 
holiness, — and,  so,  that — if  he  disobeyed,  and  ruined  him- 
self— his  probation  and  ours  would  be  closed  and  we  ruined 
with  him. 

Adam's  sin,  then,  was  imputed  to  us. 

1.  That  does  not  mean  that  God  says  we  ate  the  apple. 

2.  Nor  does  it  mean  that  Adam's  sinful  disposition  or 
character  is  transferred  to  us  leaving  him  holy — or  that  by 
his  corruption  we  are  corrupted  while  yet  we  are  holy. 
The  moral  character  of  one  man  cannot  thus  be  transferred 
to  another.  When,  in  the  Scripture,  it  is  said  that  our  sins 
are  imputed  to  Christ,  it  is  not  meant  that  Christ  is  cor- 
rupted by  the  infusion  of  our  corruption  into  His  holy 
nature, — and,  when  Christ's  righteousness  is  said  to  be 
imputed  to  a  believer,  it  is  not  meant  that  the  believer  is 
thus  made  as  holy  in  himself  as  Christ  is. 

3.  Nor, — on  the  other  hand — does  "to  impute"  mean  that 
the  thing  imputed  becomes  the  mere  occasion  of  certain 
good   or   evil   consequences — as   if   Adam's   sin   were   the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  253 

occasion   of   our   misery — just  as  the   goodness   of  Joseph 
was  the  occasion  of  Pharaoh's  kindness  to  Jacob. 

But — the  precise  thing  meant  is  that  the  thing  imputed 
becomes  the  judicial  ground  of  the  bestowal  of  reward, 
or  of  the  infliction  of  penalty.  On  the  account  of  Christ's 
obedience  we  have  what  Christ  earned — heaven.  On  account 
of  Adam's  disobedience  we  have  what  Adam  earned — his 
wages,  death.  When  it  is  said  that  the  sin  of  Adam  is 
imputed  to  us,  it  is  not  meant  that  the  fearful  consequences 
of  that  sin  are  mere  calamities,  or  accidents,  or  sovereign 
inflictions,  but  that  they  are  punishments  indicted — because 
of  what  Adam  did — by  the  just  judgment  of  God. 

Men  therefore  stood  their  probation  in  Adam.  As  he 
sinned,  his  posterity  comes  into  the  world  in  a  state  of  sin 
and  condemnation.  They  are,  by  nature — the  "children 
of  wrath,"  the  evils  which  they  suffer,  are  not  arbitrary 
impositions — nor  merely,  natural  consequences — they  are 
judicial  inflictions — His  sin  made  them  sinners.  The  loss  of 
original  righteousness  and  death  spiritual  and  temporal 
under  which  they  commence  their  existence  are  the  penalty 
of  Adam's  sin. 

God  when  he  created  Adam,  entered  into  a  covenant 
with  him  for  his  posterity. 

Adam  knew  this,  St  Paul  says  he  was  not  deceived — 
He  knew  that  he  was  acting  for  unborn  generations  when 
it  was  said  to  him  "In  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof — 
thou  man  mon  niD  dying  shalt  die — shalt  continue  to 
die,  thy  race  shall  die. 

Adam  deliberately  committed  the  sin — assuming  the  re- 
sponsibility. 

God  then  imputed  the  sin  to  us — in  the  sense  of  charging 
it  on  our  whole  race  represented  in  their  first  father — 
making  it  the  legal  and  judicial  ground  of  our  condem- 
nation— so  that  we  die. 

"Adam   the   sinner — at  his   fall, 
Death  like  a  conqueror  seized  us  all, 
A  thousand  new  born  babes  are  dead, 
By  fatal  union  with  their  head," 


254  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Proof  of  the  Doctrine. 

The  Scriptual  proof  of  this  doctrine  runs  through  the 
entire  passage  of  which  our  text  forms  a  part — 

"By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world  and  death  by 

sin,  and  so  death  passed  upon  all  men." 

"Through  the  offence  of  one  many  be  dead." 

"The  judgment  was  by  one  to  condemnation." 

"By  one  man's  offence  death  reigned  by  one." 

"By  the  offence  of  one,  judgment  came  upon  all  men 

to  condemnation." 

As,  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners — 
so  by  the  obedience  of  one  shall  many  be  made  righteous." 

In  the  last  statement  which  embraces  our  text  the  parallel 
of  Adam  and  Christ  as  heads  and  representatives — each 
of  his  own — one  of  the  natural  and  the  other  of  the  spiritual 
race,  is  brought  so  vividly  into  light  that  we  seem  to  see 
the  whole  human  family  divided  between  them  and  eclipsed 
in  their  shadows — as  if  there  were  only  two,  and  all 
other  men  were  either  annihilated  in  their  presence,  or 
absorbed  in  their  persons. 

Let  us  now  approach,  with  the  profoundest  reverence, 
the  question  of  the  propriety  of  a  constitution  like  this — 
"a  constitution  which  lies,"  as  Dr.  John  Owen  has  said' — 
"at  the  very  foundation  of  all  wherein  we  have  to  do  with 
God." 

And  first — let  us  remind  ourselves  that  that  which  has 
been  passed  in  review,  is  a  matter  of  pure  revelation. 
Nowhere  but  from  the  Bible  do  we  know  anything  about 
Adam,  or  our  relation  to  Adam.  We  enter  here  into  God's 
domain,  which  is  the  domain  of  mystery.  We  are  on 
ground  where  our  business  is  to  believe  and  adore — not  to 
question.  Indeed  we  are  not  to  expect  that  any  explanation 
of  so  profound  a  fact  as  the  imputation  of  the  sin  of 
Adam  will,  or  can  be  perfectly  satisfactory.  Philosophers 
who  are  wise  in  the  affairs  of  this  world  assure  us  that 
a  full  explanation  of  anything  is  an  impossibility.  In 
every  department  of  knowledge,  if  we  go  a  few  steps  from 
the  bare  fact — from  what  is  visible  on  the  surface,  we 
come  to  an  absolute  mystery  which  none  can  explain.     Ask 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  255 

the  most  learned  surgeon  to  explain  the  motion  of  the 
hand.  He  tells  you  of  the  muscles — of  the  nerves — the 
brain,  but  when  you  ask  him  what  is  the  precise  connection 
— how  the  brain  acts  on  the  nerve  he  can  no  more  tell 
you,  than  the  most  ignorant  savage.  Facts,  we  can  know — 
but,  when  we  undertake  to  go  behind  them,  we  shall  find 
that,  but  a  few  steps  will  bring  us  to  the  dark  gulf  of  an 
unresponding   and    fathomless    mystery. 

To  the  question, — how  is  the  federal  constitution  to  be 
reconciled  with  reason, — the  first  answer  must  be — It  is 
none  of  our  affair  to  reconcile  it  with  reason.  It  is 
beyond  reason.  It  belongs  to  the  region  of  the  incom- 
prehensible. We  receive  it  simply  because  God  says  it — not 
because  we  see  it  to  be  just — we  knozv  it  to  be  just  because 
it  is  a  part  of  the  ways  of  the  just  and  holy  God.  We 
know  it  to  be  just  and  right  and  holy,  but  how  it  is  so,  we 
may  not  be  able  to  see.  If  we  are  going  to  wait  until  we 
understand  everything  we  must  give  up  the  thought  of 
salvation. 

"You  cannot  comprehend,"  says  Luther — "how  a  just 
God  can  condemn  us  for  the  sin  of  Adam.  The  answer  is, 
God  is  incomprehensible  throughout  and  therefore  His 
justice,  as  we'd  as  His  other  attributes,  is  beyond  our 
measure  and  must  ue  uncomprehended.  It  is  on  this  very 
ground  that  St.  Paul  exclaims — 'Oh  the  depth  of  the  riches 
both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God — how  un- 
searchable are  His  judgments  and  His  ways  past  finding 
out' — now,  His  judgments  would  not  be  past  finding  out, 
if  we  could  always  perceive  them  to  be  just." 

But — receiving  and  believing  the  fact  on  the  simple  ground 
of  the  Divine  testimony,  we  are  at  liberty  to  ponder  the 
fact  and  harmonize  it  with  other  considerations  which  go 
to  shed  light  on  its  justice :  and 

1.  One  is  that  either  v.e  must  r.uvv  be  suffering  for  the 
sin  of  Adam  or  else  zvc  are  mffenng  for  nothing  at  all. 
If  Adam  did  not  sin  and  if  we  are  not  punished  for 
Adam's  sin — then  coming  into  the  world  independent  of 
Adam  we  are  punished  for  nothing  at  all — we  find  our- 
selves children  of  wrath — shut  from  communion  with  God 
— corrupted,  depraved — involved  in  ruin  and  going  down 


256  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

to  death,  for  nothing  at  all.  That  that  is  more  reasonable 
more  just — that  that  is  better  than  God's  explanation,  who 
will  contend? 

2.  But  again  Adam  stood  in  a  natural  relation  to  his 
race,  as  the  head  and  father  of  his  race, — why  should  he  not 
be  selected  to  act  for  them?  In  case  of  Angels  each 
stood  for  himself,  yet  they  fell — why  not  then  introduce 
another  arrangement  and,  since  it  had  appeared  that  holy 
beings- -endowed  with  every  possible  advantage  for  obey- 
ing God's  law,  would  disobey  it  and  ruin  themselves, — 
why  not — instead  of  leaving  us,  like  the  angels  to  stand  for 
ourselves, — appoint  a  covenant  head  or  representative  to 
stand  for  us ;  and  enter  into  covenant  with  him? 

3.  A  third  consideration  is  that  Adam  was  an  adult.  Now 
with  a  race  propagated  by  marriage,  either  they  must  be 
tested  in  a  perfect  adult  specimen — fully  alive  to  his  re- 
sponsibility and  with  full  powers, — or  they  must  be  tested 
one  by  one — each  as  a  little  babe  groping  his  way  from 
infancy  to  childhood,  and  liable  to  be  seduced  and  ruined 
ere  he  is  aware  of  what  he  is  doing,  or  of  wdiat  conse- 
quences are  being  entailed. 

4.  A  fourth  consideration  is  that  the  principle  of  repre- 
sentation runs  through  the  world.  The  father  is  the  legal 
representative  of  his  children  during  their  minority — what 
he  does,  binds  his  family.  The  heads  of  a  nation  represent 
it  so  that  their  declarations  of  war,  or  of  peace,  or  their 
treaties  bind  it.  This  principle  is  so  fundamental  that  it 
cannot  be  set  aside.  Every  popular  election  proves  that  a 
constituency  is  to  act  through  a  representative  and  to  be 
bound  by  the  acts  of  a  representative.  Nor  does  the  abuse 
of  the  principle  in  the  hands  of  unworthy  and  self  seeking 
men,  destroy  the  principle  itself.  Human  affairs  could  not 
move  on  nor  society  exist  without  it.  Founded  in  man's 
nature,  and  by  God's  wisdom,  we  are  obliged  to  recognize  it. 
What  wonder,  then,  if  we  find  it  inaugurated  in  Adam? 

5.  And  further — had  we  been  present had  we  and  all 

the  human  race  been  brought  into  existence  at  once — and 
had  God  proposed  to  us,  that  we  should  choose  one  of  our 
number  to  be  our  representative  that  He  might  enter  into 
covenant  with  him  on  our  behalf — should  we  not — with 
one  voice,  have  chosen  our  first  parent  for  this  responsible 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  257 

office?  Should  we  not  have  said:  "He  is  a  perfect  man 
and  bears  the  image  and  likeness  of  God, — if  any  one  is  to 
stand  for  us  let  him  be  the  man,'*  Now, — since  the  angels 
who  stood  for  themselves,  fell — why  should  we  wish  to  stand 
for  ourselves.  And  if  it  be  reasonable  that  one  stand  for 
us — why  should  we  complain,  when  God  has  chosen  the 
same  person  for  this  office,  that  we  would  have  chosen,  had 
we  been  in  existence,  and  capable  of  choosing  ourselves? 

6.  And  again :  The  fact  that  we  go  on  to  break  the 
covenant  and  disobey  the  law  of  God,  shows  that  we  are 
one  with  Adam  and  under  his  covenant.  If  not,  why  do  we 
not  repudiate  Adam — refuse  to  sin — stand  out  in  opposi- 
tion and  be  holy?  If  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  Adam  and 
are  not  in  bondage  through  Adam — why  not  break  the 
chain?     But, 

7.  And  finally — let  us  be  careful  how  we  find  fault 
with  the  representative  principle,  for  our  justification  is 
made  to  depend  on  it. 

The  doctrine  of  the  substitution  of  Christ  in  the  place 
of  His  people — the  imputation  of  their  sins  to  Him  and 
of  His  counter  righteousness  to  them  is  the  central  doctrine 
of  the  Gospel.  But  the  doctrine  of  being  saved  by  Another 
is  only  possible  on  the  ground  that  we  are  lost  through  an- 
other.    The  two  stand  or  fall  together. 

There  is  then  a  loophole  of  escape.  Inasmuch  as  our 
fall  was  not,  at  first,  a  personal  one — for  we  fell  in  Adam ; 
it  becomes  possible  for  us  to  be  recovered  by  a  second 
Representative — Another  Adam  can  undo  the  ruin  made 
by  the  first. 

The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  coming  to  stand  in  the  place  of 
sinners,  it  has  been  said: 

"O  Thou,  in  heaven  and  Earth,  the  only  peace 
Found  out  for  mankind  under  wrath ! 
Be  thou  in  Adam's  room. 
As,  in  him,  perish  all  men 
So  in  Thee 

As  from  a  second  root  shall  be  restored 
As  many  as  are  restored — without  Thee  none 
His  crime  makes  guilty  all  his  Sons — Thy  merit 
Imputed — shall  absolve  them  who  renounce 
Their  own — both  righteous  and  unrighteous  deeds, 
And  live,  in  Thee  transplanted. — and  from  Thee 
Receive  new  life," 


258  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

As  Christ  our  substitute  was  made  sin  and  yet  never 
sinned,  so  are  we  made  righteousness  though  we  have  never 
been  righteous.  As  we  were  condemned  for  what  one 
man  did  without  having  a  hand  in  it  so  are  we  justified  for 
what  Another  Man  has  done  without  having  a  hand  in  that 
either. 

So,  though,  in  one  view,  it  is  a  most  unhappy  thing  that 
we  should  all  have  fallen  by  the  one  head,  Adam — yet  here 
is  the  mercy  of  it — it  left  a  way  open  by  which  we  might 
be  restored — for  if  we  fell  by  one  Adam  there  remained 
the  possibility  of  our  rising  by  Another  Adam — even  by  the 
Lord  from  heaven.  If  the  disobedience  of  one  representa- 
tive was  the  first  cause  of  our  being  regarded  as  sinners 
then  it  became  possible  that  the  obedience  of  Another  and 
a  greater  Representative  might  enable  God  to  regard  and 
to  treat  us  as  righteous. 

Are  we  then  disposed  to  ask  "was  this  just?"  Let  us  not 
ask  a  question  which,  answered  in  the  negative,  would  prove 
the  end  of  every  hope — let  us  not  cavil  at  what  is  so  greatly 
to  our  advantage — let  us  not  quarrel  with  the  only  possible 
way  of  Salvation.  Rather  let  us  bow  before  what  we  can- 
not understand,  and  accept  it  with  gratitude.  Let  us  say  to 
ourselves :  "Blessed  is  the  man  whose  transgression  is  for- 
given— whose  sin  is  covered — Blessed  is  the  man  unto  whom 
the  Lord  imputeth  not  iniquity  and  in  whose  spirit  there  is 
no  guile."  I  dare  not  question  the  perfect  justice  of  my  fall 
in  Adam ;  I  should  be  most  unwise  if  I  did,  for  by  doing  so 
I  might  cast  some  doubt  upon  the  justice  of  my  rising  in 
the  Second  Adam ;  and  what  other  way  of  rising  is  there 
possible  for  me,  or  possible  for  any  one  of  us? 

And  one  more  thought  in  this  connection — as  it  was  by 
one  act  of  Adam — not  by  all  his  sins — but  by  his  first  sin — 
simply  and  solely — we  were  ruined,  so  it  can  be  that  by  one 
act  only — one  single,  simple  act  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  tve 
can  be  saved.  Oh,  the  splendor  of  this  doctrine — "As  the 
judgment  was  by  one  offence  to  condemnation,  so  the  free 
gift  is  of  many  offences  unto  justification." 

Because  it  came  upon  us  by  Adam  with  no  sin  on  our  part 
— so  it  can  come  upon  us  by  Christ  without  any  merits  or 
doings,  or  being  or  works  of  our  own.  Salvation  is  a  free 
gift  bestowed  upon  men  without  anything  on  their  part  to 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  259 

deserve  it.  When  God  saves  a  sinner,  it  is  only  as  a  sinner 
that  he  is  saved.  He  has  simply  as  a  lost  sinner  to  look  to 
and  trust  the  lost  sinner's  Saviour  and  the  fact  is  accom- 
plished. If  thou  believest  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  my 
brother — God  saves  thee — and  saves  thee  completely,  un- 
conditionally and  forever.  It  is  said  that  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  once  asked  to  pardon  a  person  who  had  made  an  at- 
tempt on  her  life.  She  felt  she  could  forgive  the  man  but 
she  said:  "Now,  if  I  pardon  you  it  must  be  on  certain  con- 
ditions." The  man  at  once  answered — for  he  was  a  Scotch- 
man who  had  done  what  he  had  done  in  the  interest  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots — he  answered,  quoting  from  an  old  and 
sound  divine:  "Grace  on  conditions,  your  Majesty,  is 
no  grace  at  all."  "That  is  so,"  said  the  queen*  "then  I  will 
pardon  you  without  any  conditions,"  and  thereby  she  made 
out  of  an  enemy — the  most  loyal  of  subjects  for  the  rest 
of  his  life. 

We  are  saved  then  at  once  and  for  nothing — by  a  simple 
acceptance  of  it  in  Christ. 

And  this,  let  us  know,  means  actual  acquittal.  We  are 
not  held  in  suspense.  The  instant  we  trust  Christ  and 
commit  our  interests  to  Christ — we  are  out  of  Adam  and 
beyond  condemnation.  From  that  instant  God  saves  us  in 
Christ.  Our  punishment  has  been  borne  by  Another  and 
our  sin  has  been  put  away  forever.  "It  is  finished"  is 
Christ's  own  declaration.  The  righteousness  that  God  re- 
quired of  us  has  been  perfected  by  Another — even  by  our 
Great  Substitute  and  He  has  wrapped  that  robe  around  us 
and  we  may  wear  it — the  peace  of  God  within  us  sweetly 
singing: 

"In  my  Surety  I  am  free 

His  dear  hands  were  pierced  for  me 

With  His  spotless  vesture  on 

I'm  holy  as  the  Holy  One." 

"There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  that  are 
in  Christ  Jesus,"  and  we  are  in  Him  by  trusting  Him.  Is 
there  not  some  one  here  who  never  has  done  it,  who  feels 
he  can  trust  Him  to-day? 


260  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


SUBSTITUTION. 

BUSINESS    PRINCIPLES   AND  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Rom.  v:i9. 

"For  as  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners, 
so  by  the  obedience  of  One  shall  many  be  made  righteous." 

In  the  Palace  of  Justice  at  Rome,  they  take  you  into  a 
chamber  painted  with  frescoes — covered  on  the  ceiling — 
on  the  walls — and  even  on  the  floor  beneath  your  feet,  with 
seemingly  distorted,  grotesque  forms.  You  cannot  reduce 
these  forms  to  harmony — you  cannot  make  out  the  per- 
spective.   It  is  all  a  bewildering  maze  of  confusion. 

But  there  is  one  spot  on  the  floor  of  that  room,  and  only 
one  spot — where,  if  you  take  your  stand,  each  line  falls  into 
harmony — the  perspective  becomes  perfect — the  picture 
flashes  out  upon  you  instinct  in  each  line  and  panel.  You 
can  see  at  that  point,  and  only  at  that  point,  the  design  of 
the  artist  who  painted  it. 

The  same  thing  may  be  said — within  an  infinitely  higher 
range  of  observation — of  the  Cross.  The  world  is  a  be- 
wildering maze  looked  at  from  every  point  except  that  one — 
mysteries  hem  us  in  and  crush  us  until  we  take  our  stand 
at  Calvary.  Then  darkness  and  discord  become  harmony 
and  light — then  mysteries  are  solved — then  night,  which 
shut  us  in  with  murky  clouds,  becomes  radiant  with  cer- 
tainty and  clearness. 

The  Atonement  is  the  centre  and  the  moral  Pivot  of 
the  activity  of  God.  The  Atonement  is  God's  great  business 
and  it  is  the  business — norm. 

For  business  means  action  and  it  means,  specifically, 
moral  action.  To  be,  is  to  live — to  live,  is  to  act.  Business 
then,  is  the  pulse  of  the  universe.  When  we  say,  "God's 
chief  end  is  Himself,"  we  mean,  God's  business  is  to  un- 
fold, display  His  attributes  and  manifest  His  glory.  When 
we  say,  "Man's  chief  end  is  to  glorify  God,"  we  mean, 
Man's  business  is  to  seek  and  to  promote  God's  glory. 
Business  is  simply  right  moral  activity.     Business  every- 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE.  261 

where,  therefore,  is  built  on  integrity.  What  is  sometimes 
distinguished  as  "mercantile'  or  "commercial"  integrity  does 
not  differ  from  any  other  integrity. 

The  soul  of  business  is  honor.  Business  is  right  action 
looking  to  a  right  end.  If  not,  we  say  of  it,  "That  is  not 
business,"  meaning,  it  is  not  legitimate — right,  straight- 
forward moral  action. 

The  soul  of  business  is  honesty — having  things  plumb  at 
the  centre  and  making  things  square. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  success  along  lines  that  are 
crooked.  The  history  of  the  world  proves  this.  The  history 
of  all  advance  in  sciences  in  arts,  in  the  steady  and  rapid 
accumulation  of  the  best  products  of  industry  and  skill,  in 
the  solid  growth  of  capital,  goes  universally  to  show  that 
this  advance  is  not  the  result  of  fraud  and  dishonesty,  but 
of  obedience  to  principle — of  working  in  subjection  to  recog- 
nized and  undisputable  moral  standards — to  laws  which, 
however  they  may  be  exceptionally  and  even,  at  times,  glar- 
ingly broken,  inevitably  revenge  themselves  and  fling  in- 
iquity beneath  the  wheel.  For  however  much  rascality 
there  may  be  in  the  world,  and  there  is  rascality  in  it,  two 
facts  are  certain : 

One,  that  the  world  is  built  on  God's  plan — that  it  runs 
in  the  grooves  of  His  thought.  "The  earth  is  the  Lord's." 
He  made  it  and  He  controls  it."  That  it  did  not  make 
itself,  and  that  it  does  not  run  itself  is  plain.  Its  forces 
are  His  movements.  Its  laws  are  simply  His  "ways" — the 
carrying  out  of  what  He  Himself  is  and  must  be. 

That  is  one  fact ;  and  the  other  one  is  that  no  business  can 
live  and  flourish  in  this  world  by  injustice  and  wrong. 
"Where  is  a  single  business  house,"  inquires  a  trenchant 
thinker,  "that  has  been  built  up  and  stood  through  the  cen- 
turies buttressed  in  dishonesty?"  There  is  not  one.  The 
very  thought  is  absurd.  The  whole  machinery  of  God  is 
arrayed  against  such  a  business  and  sooner  or  later  will 
hurl  it  to  the  ground.  Has  not  the  zvorld  long  since  rec- 
ognized this  ?  Has  it  not  framed  for  its  own  selfish  ends 
the  maxim,  "Honesty  is  the  best  policy?"  Victor  Hugo  said, 
"Napoleon  failed  at  Waterloo  not  because  of  the  rain  of  the 
previous  night,  and  not  because  of  Blucher's  delay ;  but  be- 


262  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

cause  he  embarrassed  God."  So  business  men  fail  when 
they  think  they  can  ensure  success  by  business  methods  that 
embarass  God. 

These  things,  which  are  true  in  the  sphere  of  the  seen  and 
the  natural,  are  not  less  true  in  the  sphere  of  the  unseen  and 
supernatural.  Could  God  swerve  at  the  Centre — in  what  is 
beyond  us, — could  He  deny  Himself — could  He  prove  un- 
true to  His  principles — to  His  personal  perfections — His 
character  would  fall  and  with  it  His  Kingdom  would  fall, 
and  the  universe  be  a  ruin. 

God's  transactions  must,  for  His  own  sake  and  for  our 
sake,  square.  No  man  can  have  comfort  with  regard  to  a 
business  transaction  unless  it  is  seen  to  be  square,  and  this 
truth  applies  with  ten-thousand-fold  force  when  it  comes 
to  that  highest  transaction  of  all,  the  rectification  of  the 
relations  of  sinners  to  God — the  payment  of  the  infinite 
debt  which  they  owe  Him. 

The  Bible  puts  the  Atonement  as  a  quid  pro  quo.  There 
is  no  compromise  about  it.  There  is  no  subterfuge  about 
it.  There  is  no  discount  of  price.  There  is  no  attempt  at 
making  an  impression  that  justice  has  been  satisfied  and  the 
claims  of  Law  and  moral  Government  met,  when  none  of 
these  things  is  the  fact,  but  the  whole  a  theatrical  sham — a 
business  canard — a  poetical  fiction. 

There  are  many  ways,  especially  in  modern  times,  of 
putting  the  Atonement,  but  we  prefer  to  put  it  as  the  Bible 
and  as  the  Old  Divinity  would  do,  that  "we  are  bought 
with  a  price."  "We  believe  that,  in  and  through  the  Blood 
of  Jesus,  we  have  redemption  and  that  we  are  ransomed 
from  destruction  by  the  Mediator's  death — the  Lord  Jesus 
having  bought  us  by  the  suit  and  service  which  He  rendered 
in  our  place  and  stead." 

And  we  do  not  hesitate  to  speak  plainly  even  in  face  of 
certain  pretentious  preachers,  whose  custom  it  is  to  ridicule 
the  Old  Theology  and  to  raise  objections  against  what  they 
are  pleased  to  call  the  "mercantile  theory  of  the  Atonement." 

As  if  there  could  be  any  other  theory  of  the  Atonement. 
As  if  the  thoughts  of  purchase  paid  and  satisfaction  ren- 
dered do  not  enter  into  the  very  essence  of  a  redemption? 
As  if  there  could  be  a  transaction  for  us  between  Christ  as 
our  Surety  and  God  our  Father,  justly  incensed  with  us  on 


THE   DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE.  263 

the  account  of  our  sins,  which  was  not  square — which  did 
not  turn  upon  the  exact  meeting  of  the  claims  of  justice  by 
an  Atonement  adequate,  equal — offered  on  one  side — ac- 
cepted on  the  other — perfect  and  complete. 

So,  at  least,  St.  Paul  regards  it ;  and  so  he  puts  it.  He 
is  not  afraid  of  the  mercantile  theory,  of  a  commercial 
atonement,  for  he  says,  "Ye  are  bought!"  and  to  make  it 
more  explicit  he  says,  "Ye  are  bought  with  a  price!"  An- 
other Apostle,  St.  Peter,  compares  it  to  payment  of  silver 
and  gold.  This  is  putting  it  strongly  no  doubt  but  putting 
it  quite  in  accord  with  that  other  Old  Testament  fiat,  "De- 
liver him  from  going  down  to  the  pit — I  have  found  a  ran- 
som !" 

We  believe,  in  close  analogy  with  all  other  Divine  and 
human  transactions,  in  a  satisfaction  which  satisfies — in  an 
Atonement  which  truly  atones — in  a  transaction  of  trans- 
fer and  payment  in  which  an  equivalent  was  given  and  a 
possession  secured.  We  believe,  then,  in  no  "cloudy  phan- 
tom-like atonement  which  did  something  or  nothing,  and 
was  a  mere  exhibition  without  any  real  results ;"  but  we  be- 
lieve that  Jesus  died  for  and  in  the  place  of  His  people 
to  "redeem  us  to  God  by  His  blood" — so  that  the  chant  of 
heaven  is  no  idle  rhapsody  and  the  fact  we  rest  on  is  no 
empty  dream.  We  believe  that  Christ  has  so  expiated  our 
guilt — has  so  paid  the  debt  of  His  chosen,  as  that  God 
Himself  must  be  unjust  and  dishonored  forever,  if  He 
does  not  honor  to  the  full  the  Bill  of  Exchange  which 
Christ  has  put  into  His  hands. 

In  other  words,  we  believe  in  the  actual  substitution  of 
Christ  in  the  place  of  the  sinner,  to  meet  all  claims,  whether 
of  precept  or  penalty,  upon  the  sinner — to  obey  as  well  as 
to  die  for  the  sinner — to  make  up  all  accounts  of  every 
kind  and  all  our  liabilities  to  God-ward — so  that  the 
exchange  and  transfer  are  complete.  The  sin  of  the  sinner 
is  laid  over  on  the  Son  of  God — "the  Lord  hath  laid  on 
Him,  the  iniquities  of  us  all" ;  and  the  righteousness  of 
the  Son  of  God  is  laid  over  on  the  sinner.  "He  hath  cov- 
ered me  with  the  robe  of  His  righteousness." 

So  that  those  who  believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ — 
who  accept  Him  as  their  substitute,  stand,  at  once,  in  all 
His  rights — in  all  his  righteousness  in  which  God  omnis- 


264  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

cient  cannot  see  one  spot  or  flaw — that  is  to  say,  as  it  is 
written — "He  hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us  who  knew 
no  sin,  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in 
Him." 

So  that — to  put  it  again  and  even  more  clearly  if  pos- 
sible— I  standing  before  the  Law  of  God,  a  fallen  sinful 
child  of  Adam — one  on  whom  that  law  lays  its  commands 
but  who  constantly  breaks  and  cannot  keep  it — Christ  comes 
in  and  keeps  it  for  me,  obeying  all  His  lifetime  in  my  room 
and  sealing  this  obedience,  at  last,  in  the  vermilion  of  His 
precious  Blood,  or  to  clench  it  in  the  language  of  the  text — 
"As  by  one  man's  (Adam's)  disobedience  many  were  made 
sinners;  so  by  the  obedience  of  One  (of  Christ)  shall 
many  be  made  righteous." 

An  Atonement,  four  square,  quadrating  with  all  the  re- 
quirements of  God — as  long  as  the  law — as  broad  as  the 
law — as  high  as  the  law — a  cubic  righteousness,  a  Founda- 
tion of  which  it  is  said — "the  length  and  the  breadth,  and 
the  height  of  it  are  equal" — this,  on  strict  business-princi- 
ples, is  the  Atonement  of  God.  I  owe  a  debt  and  Christ  pays 
it.  Not  2  cents  in  the  dollar — nor  10,  nor  25,  nor  50  cents, 
nor  99  cents  and  99  mills,  but  100  cents  in  the  dollar — All  I 
owe — All,  all  I  owe!  And  a  debt  paid  once,  is  wiped  out 
forever. 

"If   Christ   has   my   discharge   procured, 
And  freely  in  my  place  endured 

The  whole  of  wrath  divine; 
Payment  God  cannot  twice  demand, 
First  at  my  bleeding  Surety's  hand, 
And  then  again  at  mine." 

And  we  will  make  bold  to  say,  at  this  point,  that  every 
right  minded,  honest  moral  being  in  the  universe  will  not 
only  give  in  to,  but  choose  and  praise  such  an  atonement. 
And  we  will  go  even  farther  and  say  that  displeasure  with 
such  an  atonement — unwillingness  that  God  should  be  just 
— the  disposition  to  demur — to  question,  to  cavil  at — and 
set  aside  such  an  Atonement  seems  sadly  and  seriously  to 
betray  interior  moral  obliquity.  Perhaps  the  man  who  ob- 
jects is  not,  in  his  own  business,  square.  He  is  an  adven- 
turer it  may  be — a  speculator  it  may  be — a  gambler  in  grain 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  265 

or  in  stocks  it  may  be,  his  are  fast  and  loose  business  ways 
— he  lives  bv  encroachment  it  may  be — by  taking  advan- 
tage, by  legal,  skilful,  unsuspected  frauds  it  may  be — His 
own  business  methods  are  wrong,  how  can  he  be  pleased 
with  and  ratify  God's? 

NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

The  character  of  the  Atonement  as  a  quid  pro  quo  ex- 
change and  permutation,  being  thus  made  clear,  let  us 
proceed  to  consider  more  carefully  what  is  its  nature,  what 
are  its  parts? 

and 

I.  Its  Nature  depends  on  our  need.  This  is  brought  out 
in  the  word  "Disobedience."  Adam,  in  Eden,  wrecked  us. 
Standing  there  as  our  first  Father  and  Representative,  he 
broke  God's  law.  That  breakage  involved  two  things : 
Commission  and  Omission. 

1.  It  involved  the  commission  of  sin.  It  therefore  in- 
volved penalty.  Adam  was  a  criminal  from  the  moment  he 
sinned  and  he  was  sentenced  and  doomed  from  that  mo- 
ment— "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die." 

Adam  then  was  to  die.  That  was  one  effect  of  his  dis- 
obedience. But  if  he  dies,  he  cannot  save  himself — he  dies, 
that  is  all.  Dying  in  his  own  place  and  for  himself  he  is 
damned. 

For  this  reason  no  one  has  ever  held  that  the  Atonement 
is  one's  dying  for  himself — going  up  upon  the  cross  and 
hanging  there  and  shedding  his  own  blood  to  save  himself. 
Bad  as  men  are  and  self-righteous  as  they  are  and  heretic 
as  every  man,  by  nature,  is.  upon  this  point  of  merit — no 
one  has  ever  gone  so  far  as  to  preach  suicide  as  salvation. 
Instinct  tells  us  that  the  suicide  so  far  from  being  saved 
is  doubly  damned. 

We  cannot,  then,  die  for  ourselves,  in  atonement  for 
Adam's  and  our  disobedience.  We  must  have  some  one  to 
die  in  our  stead. 

2.  But  that  is  not  all.  Adam's  disobedience  involved  not 
only  Commission  of  sin  but  Omission  of  righteousness. 
God  had  said  to  man,  "Do  this  and  live!"   Had  Adam,  in- 


266  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

stead  of  sinning,  kept  on  obeying  God,  he  would  have  kept 
his  original  perfection — he  would  have  earned  heaven  for 
himself  and  us,  and  he  would  have  been  confirmed  as  a 
holy  and  happy  being  forever. 

But,  by  sinning,  he  lost  this — i.  e.  he  lost  character  and 
he  lost  power.  If  I  cut  the  veins  of  my  wrists,  I  not  only 
sin  against  my  body,  but  I  make  my  arms  powerless. 

Adam  shed  his  life  out  so  that  he  was  powerless  and  no 
longer  able  to  perform  perfect  works. 

But  he  was  bound — none  the  less — to  perform  perfect 
works,  for  he  was  made  perfect  and  God's  law  did  not 
change  with  his  fall.  The  law  is  the  same,  to-day  that  it 
ever  was,  and,  like  God,  it  is  perfect,  but  Adam  and  we 
are  fallen  and  cannot  any  longer  meet  the  law  with  perfect 
works. 

Some  think,  we  can.  They  think  the  fall  in  Adam  has 
not  injured  us  any — that  there  was  no  fall.  That  men  are 
as  holy,  or  may  be,  if  they  choose,  as  holy  as  Adam  was  and 
as  the  angels  are.  Therefore  we  can  bring  perfect  works 
and  are  bound  to  bring  them,  and  are  justified  in  that  way. 
This  sentiment  not  only  contradicts  the  text  which  says 
that  by  Adam's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners — 
sinful  creatures,  but  it  contradicts  the  guilty  consciousness 
of  man  which  cries,  "The  Law  is  holy  and  the  command- 
ment holy  and  just  and  good  but  I  am  carnal — helplessly 
sold  under  sin." 

Some  think  that  if  we  cannot  bring  perfect  works  of  our- 
selves and  by  nature,  yet  we  are  by  baptism  and  by  the 
Church,  introduced  into  grace,  and  that  then  by  our  works 
we  can  merit  and  do  merit  eternal  life.  Christ's  Blood  pays 
up  for  our  past  before  baptism,  and  buys  for  us  grace  and 
then  we,  using  this  grace,  merit  ourselves,  for  the  future. 
This  notion  also  flatly  contradicts  the  text  which  says 
that,  as  by  the  disobedience  of  one — his  act  and  not  our 
act,  we  were  made  sinners ;  so  by  the  obedience  of  Another, 
His  act  and  not  our  act,  we  are  made  righteous.  Besides, 
a  perfect  law  demands  perfection — imperfection  cannot 
merit,  and  "there  is  not  a  just  man  on  earth  that  doeth 
good  and  sinneth  not" — sin  vitiates  and  nullifies  his  good. 

The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  opinion  of  others 
who  modify  this  and  teach  that,  in  virtue  of  the  work  of 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  267 

Christ,  "God  has  entered  into  a  new  covenant  with  man, 
the  condition  of  which,  instead  of  being,  as  before,  per- 
ect  obedience,  is  Faith  and  Evangelical  or  Gospel  obedience 
— i.  e.,  that  we  are  to  trust  Christ  and  do  the  best  we  can, 
and,  if  we  hold  out  and  do  not  fail,  God  will  have  mercy," — 
all  of  which  sets  aside  the  obedience  of  One,  by  which,  and 
and  by  which  only  and  instantly,  and  everlastingly  we  are 
made  righteous.  It  also  kills  integrity  in  God  by  relaxing 
His  law  and  sinking  its  requirements  to  the  level  of  the  sink- 
ing sinner,  until  no  law  is  left  and  no  obedience. 

Now  right  perpendicular  and  opposite  to  this — the  con- 
trast is  the  absolute  and  perfect,  flawless  Divine  righteous- 
ness of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  sinner's  place  and  upon  which 
alone  he  is  justified. 

Man  sinned — he  therefore  is  no  longer  innocent — man  did 
not  keep  the  command,  he  therefore  is  no  longer  righteous. 
In  that  which  he  committed  and  in  that  which  he  omitted 
his  original  character  was  completely  wrecked.  The  Lord 
Jesus  came  to  undo  the  mischief  of  this  fall  for  His  people. 
So  far  as  their  sin  concerned  their  breach  of  the  command, 
that  He  has  removed  by  His  precious  Blood.  His  agony  and 
bloody  sweat  have  forever  taken  awav  the  consequences  of 
sin  from  believers,  seeing  He,  by  His  one  sacrifice,  bore  the 
penalty  of  that  sin  in  His  flesh. 

Still  it  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to  be  pardoned.  He,  of 
course,  is  then  innocent — washed  from  his  sin — put  back 
again,  like  Adam,  in  Eden  just  where  he  was.  But  that  is 
not  enough.  It  was  required  of  Adam  in  Eden  that  he 
should  actually  keep  the  command.  It  was  not  enough  that 
he  did  not  break  it,  or  that  he  is  regarded,  through  the 
Blood,  as  though  he  did  not  break  it.  He  must  keep  it — he 
must  continue  in  all  things  that  are  written  in  the  book  of 
the  law  to  do  them.  How  is  this  necessity  supplied.  Man 
must  have  a  righteousness  or  God  cannot  accept  him.  Man 
must  have  a  perfect  obedience  or  else  God  cannot  reward 
him.  Should  He  give  heaven  to  a  soul  which  has  not  per- 
fectly kept  the  law :  that  were  to  give  a  reward  where  ser- 
vice is  not  done;  and  that,  before  God,  would  be  an  act 
which  would  impeach  His  justice.  What  then  is  the  right- 
eousness with  which  the  pardoned  man  shall  be  completely 
covered,  so  that  God  can  regard  him  as  having  kept  the 


268  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

law  and  reward  him  for  keeping  it?  Surely  none  of  us  are 
so  besotted  as  to  think  that  that  righteousness  can  be 
wrought  out  by  ourselves.  Surely  we  must  see,  at  once,  that 
that  righteousness  must  be  wrought  out  for  us  by  Another 
— and  that  other,  One  equal,  yea  Divinely  equal  to  the  emer- 
gency— namely  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

II.  This  view  of  its  Nature,  has  already  brought  into  dis- 
tinctness the  parts  and  perfections  of  the  Atonement.  There 
are  three  parts: 

i.  The  washing  away  of  our  sins  in  Christ's  Blood — 
the  making  us  innocent.  "The  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  His 
Son,  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin." 

2.  There  is  the  meriting  of  heaven  for  us.  An  innocent 
man  merits  nothing — he  is  only  innocent.  Suppose  a 
criminal  in  prison  is  pardoned  and  set  free.  That 
pardon  and  freedom  do  not  make  him  President  of  the 
United  States — or  enroll  him  as  Senator — they  give  him 
freedom — that  is  all.  So  washing  us  from  our  sins  only  puts 
us  back  where  Adam  was — innocent.  Then,  Heaven  must 
be  merited  for  us  by  an  active  obedience,  as  Adam  must 
have  merited,  had  he  won  it.  That  Christ  does  by  His  obedi- 
ence as  God  for  us  for  33  years — the  period  of  a  genera- 
tion— of  a  human  lifetime.-  The  ground  on  which 
we  go  to  heaven,  therefore,  is  a  perfect  ground — 
a  pavement  and  a  platform,  every  stone  in  which 
was  laid  by  the  meritorious  actions  of  Christ,  who 
was  made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law  and  who,  so 
made,  earned  salvation  for  the  sons  of  men  and  thus  is 
called — "The  Lord  our  Righteousness !"  When  the  believer, 
then,  gets  heaven,  he  gets  it  as  the  wages  of  Christ's  work, 
not  his  own.  Not  one  thing  does  he  contribute  either  to  get 
or  to  secure  his  heaven.  Christ  does  it  all  for  him — earns  it 
all — and  he  has  it  for  nothing — a  gift. 

3.  The  Person  doing  this — the  substitute  of  the  sinner 
is  not  only  man  representing  him,  but  the  Eternal  God. 
Down  out  of  the  midst  of  the  Trinity  descends  the  Second 
Person — ineffable  Diety — ineffable  glory.  The  work  which 
He  does  for  us  is  the  work  of  God  for  us — surely  that  will 
stand  for  everything.  The  Blood  which  He  shed  is  the 
Blood  of  God  for  us — surely  the  Blood  of  God  will  wash 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  269 

out  anything — will  answer  everything.  Surely,  as  we  gaze 
upon  the  matchless  perfection  of  this  gift  and  provision  of 
God — thus  freely  to  save  us — grace  must  constrain  us  each 
to  say 

"Upon  a  Life  I  did  not  live, 

Upon  a  death  I  did  not  die, 

Another's  death — Another's  life 

I  cast  my  soul  eternally. 

"Bold  shall  I  stand  in  the  great  day, 
For  who,  aught  to  my  charge  can  lay? 
Fully   absolved  by  Christ   I   am 
From  sin's  tremendous  curse  and  blame." 

We  must  believe  then — for  there  is  no  alternative — that 
the  righteousness  in  which  we  must  be  clothed,  through 
which  we  must  be  accepted,  and  by  which  we  are  made  meet 
to  inherit  eternal  life,  can  be  no  other  than  the  surety-work, 
the  substituted  work  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  therefore  boldly 
assert,  according  to  the  Scripture,  that  the  Life  of  Jesus 
constitutes  the  righteousness  in  which  His  people  are 
clothed.  His  death  washed  away  their  sins — His  life  covers 
them  from  head  to  foot — His  death  was  the  sacrifice  to  God, 
His  life  was  the  gift  to  man  by  which  man  satisfies  the  de- 
mands of  the  law. 

From  the  first  moment  when  Christ  lay  in  the  cradle 
until  the  moment  when  He  ascended  on  high  He  was  at 
work  for  His  people.  He  obeyed  for  us  in  His  life  and  said 
to  His  Father,  "I  have  finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest 
Me  to  do."  Then  He  completed  the  work  of  Atonement  in 
His  death,  and  knowing  that  all  things  were  accomplished 
He  cried — "It  is  finished" — "He  was,  through  His  life,  spin- 
ning- the  web  of  the  royal  garment,  and,  in  His  death.  He 
dipped  that  garment  in  His  Blood.  Tn  His  life.  He  was 
gathering  together  the  precious  gold — in  His  death  He 
hammered  it  out  to  make  for  us  a  garment  which  is  of 
wrought  gold."  In  Russia  I  saw  the  Emperor's  Coronation 
robe: — it  was  of  woven  threads  of  gold — when  on  him  he 
shone  lustrous  as  if  all  gold — so, 

With  His  spotless  vesture  on,  "I'm  holy  as  the  Holy  One" 
— God  says  of  me — "The  King's  daughter  is  all  glorious 
within — her  clothing  is  of  wrought  gold." 


270  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

This  is  the  Bible  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  It  quadrates. 
It  squares.  It  is  a  transaction  and  payment  worthy  of  God. 
Like  as  in  the  ancient  Tabernacle  where  the  Brazen  Altar 
exactly  corresponded  in  its  dimensions  with  the  curtained 
chamber  which  contained  God's  Presence,  so  now  and  so 
forever  is  the  Altar  equal  to  the  Holiest.  What  the  Law 
could  not  do  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God 
sending  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for 
sin,  has  accomplished — "Who  died  the  just  for  the  unjust  to 
bring  us  to  God — who  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and 
raised  again  for  our  justification." 

Christ  is  God's  sufficient  answer  to  all  the  soul's  need — 
Christ  now — Christ  for  us,  as  we  are,  sinners;  as  we  are  at 
our  last  and  our  lowest — Christ  and  not  our  efforts — not  our 
anxieties — not  our  penances — not  our  punctilious  observ- 
ances, 

"It  is  not  thy  tears  of  repentance  nor  prayers, 
But  the  Blood  that  atones  for  the  soul ; 
On  Him  then  who  shed  it,  thou  mayest  at  once, 
Thy  weight  of  iniquities  roll." 

I  have  read  a  lovely  story  which  for  illustration  I  will 
give  you  as  I  close: 

A  little  girl  in  Switzerland  lived  with  her  parents  on  the 
side  of  one  of  their  lofty  and  beautiful  mountains.  A  deep 
chasm  separated  this  from  the  neighboring  Alps,  and  into 
this  chasm  a  huge  rock  had  fallen  and  lodged,  so  that  it 
formed  a  natural  bridge. 

One  day  when  about  to  cross  on  the  rock-bridge  the 
mother  saw  that  it  was  loose  and  just  ready  to  fall.  The 
frost  had  loosened  it.  She  told  her  little  child  that  if  she 
ever  crossed  it  again  it  would  fall  and  she  would  be  dashed 
in  pieces. 

The  little  girl  thought,  "I  will  not  step  on  the  bridge,"  and 
ran  gleefully  away  to  gather  the  wild  flowers  which  grow 
in  profusion — the  Alpen-rosen,  the  Himmel-blumen  on  the 
Alps. 

She  wandered  on,  so  busily  engaged  that  she  had  come 
quite  near  to  the  bridge  before  being  aware. 

Just  at  that  moment  she  saw  her  father  coming  toward 
her  and  found  he  intended  crossing  the  bridge. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  271 

"Father!"  said  she  earnestly,  "Mother  says  the  rock  is 
loosened  and  will  fall  if  you  step  on  it."  "Nonsense,  child," 
said  he.  "I  crossed  it  before  you  were  born.  It  is  quite  safe 
— I  must  go  to  my  work." 

"Oh  don't — please  don't  step  on  it,"  said  she.  "It  will 
fall,  I  know  it  will." 

But  the  father  only  laughed  and  persisted  that  there  was 
no  danger.  The  little  girl,  almost  wild  with  distress,  cried, 
"Father,  father!  Stop.  Promise  me  one  thing.  Promise 
me,  if  I  die  you  will  trust  in  my  Saviour."  She  knew  her 
father  was  not  a  Christian,  for  he  was  a  profane,  careless 
man.  She  herself  trusted  Jesus  and  knew  she  was  safe,  and 
determined  what  she  would  do. 

She  ran  ahead  of  him  and  leaped  upon  the  rock  and  sure 
enough  it  went  down,  and  with  it  went  the  little  girl.  The 
trembling  father  crept  to  the  edge,  and  with  eyes  dim  with 
tears  gazed  widly  on  the  wreck  and  the  crushed  form  of 
his  dear  little  child.  She  had  died  for  him.  He  was  safe. 
She  had  suffered  and  bled  in  his  place. 

This  thought  led  this  father  to  Jesus.  He  knew  that  his 
little  girl  loved  the  Saviour.  He  knew  she  knew  that  he  did 
not — that  he  was  not  prepared  to  die. 

In  her  great  love  he  read  a  deeper  mystery — how  God 
commendeth  His  love  to  us  in  that  while  we  were  sinners 
Christ  died  for  us. 

How  we  are  safe  by  what  Christ  has  done.  How  we  must 
trust  Him  and  how  He,  in  love,  takes  our  place.  Brother, 
sister,  have  you  learned  that? 


2-J2  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


GRACE  AND  WORKS. 

Rom.  iii:28,  31. 

"Therefore  we  conclude  that  a  man  is  justified  by  faith  without 
the  deeds  of  the  Law.  Do  we  then  make  void  the  Law  through 
faith?    God  forbid:  Yea  we  establish  the  Law." 

One  great  reason  why  the  Christian  life  is  not  undertaken 
or,  if  undertaken  is  found  to  be  so  unsteady, — lies  in  the 
cloudiness  which,  to  so  many  minds  covers  and  obscures  the 
entire  subject  of  religion. 

One  great  reason  is  the  want  of  clearness.  I  do  not  say 
this  is  the  only  reason.  Let  the  Gospel  be  made  as  clear 
as  the  sun  in  heaven — the  principle  as  clear  as  a  straight 
line  between  two  points — the  certainty  as  solid  as  a  rock 
beneath  the  feet,  and  yet  there  is  an  attitude  of  mind  which 
will  refuse  the  overture,  and  refuse  under  a  light  clearer 
than  noon-day.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  being  once  en- 
lightened— as  tasting  of  the  heavenly  gift — as  being  a  par- 
taker even  of  the  powers  which  lead  to  conviction  and 
decision — and  yet  crucifying  to  oneself  the  Son  of  God  by 
an  open,  definite  rejection  of  Him  on  any  terms  whatso- 
ever. 

I  once  met  a  man  brought  up  a  Presbyterian — educated 
at  Princeton — who  told  me  that  he  was  out  and  out  for  the 
devil  in  the  controversy  between  him  and  Christ — that  he 
believed  Cain  was  right — the  serpent  in  the  garden  right — ■ 
and  God  all  wrong. 

There  are  few  such  men  in  the  world,  thank  God — few 
Luciferians — few,  who  knowing  who  Christ  is,  deliber- 
ately spurn  and  reject  Him. 

But  a  vast  number  are  clouded  as  to  precisely  what  is 
meant  by  the  work  of  Christ — what  it  does  for  those  who 
accept  it — what  is  meant  by  faith  and  what  is  the  ground 
of  assurance. 

Let  me  then  emphasize,  from  the  texts  chosen,  these 
three  points : 


THE   DOCTRINES    OF    GRACE.  273 

I.  That  we  are  saved  simply  on  and  for  the  Righteous- 
ness of  Christ. 

II.  Our  holiness  is  to  be  drawn,  by  faith,  from  Christ 
as  our  Substitute. 

III.  That  such  a  holiness  transcends  all  other  holiness 
in  the  sight  of  God  and  man — rather  poor  works  on  this 
principle,  than  splendid  works  on  any  other. 

I.  Then,  we  are  saved  simply  on  and  for  the  Righteous- 
ness of  Jesus  Christ. 

Grace  is  the  Essence  of  the  Gospel.  The  one  hope  of  a 
fallen  world,  it  is  the  sole  comfort  of  saints  looking  for- 
ward to  glory. 

The  Gospel  is  "good  news" — "glad  tidings,"  but  it  is 
no  good  news  to  say  that  God  is  just,  though  He  is  just — ■ 
or  that,  being  just,  He  will  punish  sin  and  reward  right- 
eousness. 

The  Good  News  is  the  announcement  that  God  is  pre- 
pared to  deal  with  guilty  man,  on  the  ground  of  free  favor 
and  of  pure  unmingled  grace — that  God  will  blot  out  sin, 
cover  the  sinner  with  righteousness  as  with  a  robe,  and 
receive  him  as  acceptable — persona  grata,  in  other  words, 
as  a  beloved  Son — not  on  account  of  anything  he  has 
ever  done  or  will  do,  but  out  of  sovereign  mercy  acting 
altogether  independently  of  the  sinner's  own  character  or 
deservings. 

The  point  is  "By  grace  are  ye  saved."  Because  God 
is  gracious,  therefore  sinful  men  are  forgiven,  converted, 
purified  and  taken  to  heaven.  It  is  not  because  of  anything 
in  them  or  that  ever  can  be  in  them  or  of  them  that  they 
are  saved;  but  only  because  of  the  boundless  love,  good- 
ness, pity,  compassion  and  mercy  of  God. 

In  other  words,  "Sinner''  is  the  reason  of  the  Gospel's 
existence.  It  is  for  sinners  it  was  planned  and  provided  and 
it  is  to  sinners  and  not  righteous,  good  and  moral  men  it  is 
offered  and  comes. 

The  Gospel  is  before  the  Results  of  the  Gospel.  The 
results  of  the  Gospel  are  penitence,  a  broken  heart,  a  new 
heart.  The  Gospel  does  not  come  to  those  who  have  these 
things.  Such  are  saved  already — they  do  not  need  the 
Gospel, 


274  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

The  Gospel  is  a  provision  for  people  who  need  it — who 
have  no  goodness  whatever — no  fitness  whatever — whose 
only  qualification  is  this  bare,  beggarly  description,  "Un- 
godly !"    "He  justifieth  the  ungodly." 

"It  does  sound  surprising,  does  it  not,"  says  one, 
"that  it  should  be  possible  for  a  holy  God  to  justify  an 
utterly  unholy  man?  We,  according  to  the  natural  legal- 
ity of  our  hearts,  are  always  talking  about  our  own  good- 
ness and  worthiness,  and  we  stubbornly  stand  to  it  that 
there  must  be  something  in  us  to  win  the  notice  of  God. 
Now  God,  who  sees  through  all  shams  and  deceptions, 
knows  there  is  in  us  no  goodness  whatever.  He  says, 
"There  is  none  righteous,  no  not  one."  He  knows  that  all 
our  righteousnesses  are  as  filthy  rags ;  and  therefore  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  did  not  come  into  the  world  to  look 
for  goodness  and  righteousness  among  men;  but  to  bring 
goodness  and  righteousness  with  Him  and  bestow  them  on 
those  who  have  none.  He  comes  not  because  we  are  just, 
but  to  make  us  so — to  bring  the  unjust  to  God,  to  One  who 
justifieth  the  ungodly." 

But  the  Good  News  goes  farther  and  tells  us  How  God 
can  do  this.  It  sets  forth  Jesus  Christ,  the  Only  Begotten 
Son  of  God  as  the  Ground.  "So  can  God  be  just!"  Hozu 
can  God  be  just?  By  exacting  the  full  penalty  on  the  cross 
and  so  saying  to  Justice  "Your  claim  is  answered,"  and 
then  by  turning  to  the  sinner  and  saying,  "The  claim 
against  you  is  answered.  The  receipt  is  nailed  to  that 
tree."  I  have  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  you — who  knew  no 
sin — that  you  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God — 
as  righteous  as  I  am  Myself — in  Him. 

This,  then,  is  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God — that  God 
is  able,  without  injustice,  to  deal  with  men  in  a  way  of 
pure  mercy — altogether  apart  from  their  sins  or  their  mer- 
its, because  their  sins  were  laid  upon  His  dear  Son  Jesus 
Christ  who  has  offered  to  Divine  Justice  a  complete  satis- 
faction, so  that  God,  while  glorious  in  holiness,  can  yet 
with  a  glory  untarnished  justify  and  accept  the  ungodly. 

It  is  clear  then  that  we  are  justified  by  what  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  has  done  out  and  out.  Our  title  to  heaven  lies 
only  in  Him.    Nothing  that  will  ever  be  in  us  or  from  us 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE.  275 

can  enter  into  the  ground  on  which  the  gates  of  heaven 
swing  open  to  you  and  to  me. 

What  is  God's  motive  in  this?  Every  wise  man,  in  act- 
ing, has  a  competent  motive.  What  are  His  reasons  for 
saving  a  sinner  purely  by  grace? 

One  reason,  no  doubt,  is  to  reveal  His  full  nature — to  tell 
out  His  very  heart.  That,  while  there  was  no  motive  to 
move  Him  outside  of  Himself,  His  own  pity  moved  Him 
so  that  He  found  a  way  bv  which  His  love  could  have  vent 
and  flow  forth  to  the  worst  of  sinners — to  those  who  sit  in 
the  thickest  gloom  of  despair.  "I,  even  I,  am  He  that  blot- 
teth  out  thy  transgressions  for  my  own  sake.  Not  for  your 
sakes  do  I  this,"  saith  the  Lord  God,  "but  for  My  Holy 
Name's  sake — because  I  will  not  have  this  human  race 
which  I  have  created  for  My  own  glory,  utterly  ruined  and 
lost." 

But  again,  God  finds  a  motive  in  Christ — that  He  may 
glorify  Christ.  God,  from  all  eternity  has  determined  to 
fill  heaven  with  souls  who  shall  owe  it  only  and  wholly  to 
Christ  that  they  are  there.  For  this  reason,  in  the  Gospel, 
He  says:  "For  Christ's  sake — and  not  because  of  any 
agonies  or  tears  or  sorrows  on  your  part — I  will  remove 
your  sins  as  far  from  you  as  is  the  East  from  the  West. 
Come  now  and  let  us  reason  together ;  though  your  sins  be 
as  scarlet  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow ;  though  they  be 
red  like  crimson  they  shall  be  as  wool.  You  may  come  to 
Jesus  just  as  you  are,  and  I  will  give  you  full  remission 
upon  your  believing  on  Him.  Look  not  zvithin  to  search  for 
any  merit  there,  but  look  unto  Him  and  be  saved.  I  will 
bless  you,  apart  from  merit,  according  to  the  atonement  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Look  not  to  yourselves  either,  for  any 
strength  of  future  life.  I  am  your  strength  and  I  will  be- 
come your  salvation.  You  are  invited,  not  because  you  are 
good  but  because  you  are  bad — not  because  you  are  strong, 
but  because  you  are  'without  strength' — not  because  you 
are  hopeful,  but  because  you  are  hopeless." 

You  are  invited  to  Christ  to  be  kept.  Not  to  keep  your- 
self, but  He  engages  to  keep  you,  to  put  His  Spirit  within 
you,  to  put  right  dispositions  within  you,  to  watch  and 
guard  and  save  you  at  your  every  step.   Anxiety  is  over  the 


276  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

moment  you  conclude  to  trust  Him.  From  that  mo- 
ment, He  takes  care  of  all.  Then,  when  you  get  to  heaven 
you  will  join  with  all  the  ransomed  in  the  one  refrain,  "Not 
unto  us !"   "Not  unto  us !"   You  will  owe  it  all  to  Christ. 

Another  reason  God  has  for  the  Gospel  plan  is  that  He 
may  save  men  by  faith.  There  is  no  other  way  of  saving 
men,  for  nothing,  but  by  a  simple  consent  on  their  part  to 
be  saved  in  that  way — i.  e.,  by  faith,  by  trust,  by  believing. 
"Tell  me  hozv  I  can  be  saved,"  says  one.  "Tell  me  quickly — 
tell  me  truly."  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou 
shalt  be  saved."  God  asks  of  you  no  good  works,  nor  good 
feelings  either,  no  work  of  the  Spirit  in  you  first,  no  re- 
pentance or  regeneration  begun.  The  Gospel  is  not  "Be 
born  again  and  I  will  save  you."  Can  any  give  himself 
a  second  birth?  Regeneration  is  God's  work — a  secret  work 
— a  work  unconscious  to  the  subject — a  work  revealed  in 
my  willingness.  Before  I  was  unwilling — now  I  am  willing. 
That  is  the  New  Birth.  "Who  is  he  that  is  born  again  but  he 
that  believeth,"  says  St.  John.  If  thou  believest  thou  art 
saved.  God  has  made  that  the  simple,  the  only  condition. 
"It  is  of  faith  that  it  might  be  of  grace  to  the  end  that  the 
promise  might  be  sure,"  says  St.  Paul.  How  could  God's 
promise  be  sure  if  it  rested  on  anything  I  am  to  do?  But 
now,  it  is  of  faith  alone  in  order  that  it  might  be  sure. 

We  are  saved,  then,  simply  on  and  for  the  Righteousness 
of  Jesus  Christ — that  is  the  first  point. 

Now, 

II.  Our  Holiness  is  to  be  drawn,  by  faith,  from  Christ 
as  our  Substitute. 

We  are  not  to  look  inside  of  ourselves  for  our  holiness, 
but  are  to  hang  upon  Christ  for  our  holiness — trusting  only 
for  thoughts,  desires,  feelings,  emotions  and  activities  to 
Him.  This  is  what  St  .Paul  means  when  he  says:  "I  am 
crucified  with  Christ — identified  with  Him,  /  am  dead  to 
myself  and  my  efforts.  I  am  crucified  with  Christ — yet  now 
I  live — I  never  did  live  till  now,  but  now  I  live  and  the  life 
which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son 
of  God  who  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me."  The 
apostle  drew  all  the  springs,  impulses,  motives  and  energy 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  277 

of  his  living  from  Christ  on  Whom  he  hung  in  a  helpless  de- 
pendence. 

Let  us  consider  this  manner  of  living  a  little  at  large — 
let  us  studv  it  a  few  moments — and 

1.  The  fact  appears  from  the  entire  teaching  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  especially  from  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  to 
the  Romans,  Galatians  and  Hebrews.  In  each  of  these  Epis- 
tles he  begins  by  laying  down  the  principle  of  justification 
bv  faith  alone,  as  the  fountain,  spring  and  original  of  all 
life.  Then,  as  a  consequence  of  this  principle  he  exhorts  to 
holy  practice  and  a  godh-  conversation.  In  these  words, 
he  carries  out,  everywhere,  the  doctrine  and  the  logic  of 
the  text,  "A  man  is  justified  by  faith  only — does  this  make 
void  the  law?  God  forbid" — as  no  other  principle — "it  es- 
tablishes the  law." 

I  am  saved  by  what  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  suffered 
and  done  in  my  stead — am  I,  then,  free  to  live  as  I  list?  By 
no  manner  of  means.  For  the  faith  with  which  I  trust  on 
Christ  is  no  dead  faith — no  insincere  and  "say  so,"  fancy 
faith,  but  an  honest,  lively  and  reponsive  faith — full  of  re- 
ciprocal movement  and  action — i.  e.  it  hangs  on  Christ  and 
draws  on  Christ  continually,  and  lives  more  and  more  the 
life  of  Christ  by  producing  the  fruits  of  it. 

A  man  does  not  work  to  be  saved,  but,  because  he  is 
saved,  he  works.  Because  now  the  law  cannot  touch  him 
to  condemn  him  but,  being  satisfied,  is  on  his  side  and 
therefore  his  friend,  therefore  he  delights  in  the  law — the 
purity  of  it,  although  he  cannot  perfectly  keep  it. 

The  faith,  then,  which  justifies,  is  full  of  works,  but  these 
works  do  not  come  into  justification.  They  are  after  results 
and  attendants  of  a  believing,  loving  confidence  in  Christ. 

When  Abraham  went  up  into  the  mountain  to  lay  hold 
upon  the  mystery  of  that  Substitute  Ram  in  the  thicket, 
which  was  a  type  of  Atonement — when  he  went  up  to  see 
and  rejoice  in  Christ's  day — a  day  of  Salvation — he  said  to 
his  servants :  "Stay  here,  at  the  foot  of  this  hill  till  I  come 
again  to  you."  Servants  Abraham  had' — attendants,  but 
they  stayed  below,  and  so  when  a  man  goes  up  into  the  hill 
of  justification — that  high  Moriah  of  free  grace,  he  takes 
only  his  faith  with  him  and  says  to  all  his  works  and  duties 


278  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

— "You  do  not  enter  here.   Abide  below  while  I  go  yonder 
and  worship,  then  I  will  come  again  to  you." 

2.  The  fact  that  our  holiness  must  flow  from  faith  only 
is  clear,  again,  not  only  from  the  teaching  of  the  Apostle 
as  to  this  special  point,  but — more  comprehensively — from 
the  whole  scope  of  salvation. 

How,  in  the  first  place,  did  sin  come  into  the  world? 
Simply  by  the  guilt  of  Adam  imputed  to  all  his  posterity. 
All  the  wickedness  in  the  world  may  be  traced  back  to  the 
one  disobedience  of  Adam.  Precisely  so,  all  the  holiness 
in  the  world  proceeds  from  the  imputation  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  Jesus  Christ  to  those  who  believe  on  Him.  His 
righteousness  becomes  theirs,  and  it  is  by  resting  on  His 
righteousness  that  they  feel  moved  to  work  and  do  work 
in  the  same  direction.  In  other  words,  a  sense  of  freedom 
changes  a  servant  who  is  servile  to  a  son  whose  life 
is  one  spontaneous  devotion. 

"To  see  the  Law  by  Christ  fulfilled 

And  hear  His  pardoning  voice 
Will  change  a  slave  into  a  chlid, 

And  duty  into  choice." 

A  woman  might  serve  a  man  for  wages ;  she  might  earn 
them  or  she  might  not  earn  them — that  would  not  make 
her  his  wife.  Marriage  is  a  free  offer.  She  cannot  earn 
marriage.  But  suppose  now  she  is  married  and  trusts  and 
loves  her  husband, — it  is  not  a  question  of  wages,  or  of 
making  marriage  sure.  She  will  give  and  do  for  this  man 
what  money  cannot  buy. 

That  is  the  difference  between  the  sons  of  Adam  trying 
to  be  justified  by  morality — by  keeping  the  law — and  the 
sons  of  God  justified  already  by  faith  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

3.  The  same  fact  might  be  argued  from  the  very  action 
of  the  law  which  is  to  turn  a  man  in  upon  himself.  A 
man  can  never  live  to  God  who  lives  to  himself,  and,  so 
long  as  a  man  seeks  justification  by  his  own  doing  and  work- 
ing he  lives  to  himself  in  himself — a  life  of  introspection- 
of  self  contemplation — of  comparing  himself — to  their  dis- 
advantage— with  those  around  him.  "Therefore,"  says  the 
Apostle,  "I  desire  not  to  be  found  in  mine  own  righteous- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  279 

ness  which  is  of  the  law — I  desire  the  righteousness  of 
Christ — to  be  always  looking  for  justification  to  Christ." 

4.  A  simile  used  by  our  Saviour  throws  light  on  the  text. 
"I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches."  How  much  does  a 
branch  have  to  work  to  get  into  the  vine?  How  much 
does  it  work  to  bear  fruit  after  it  is  in  the  vine?  It  is 
in  the  vine  simply  by  hanging  from  it,  and  it  brings  forth 
fruit  simply  by  drawing  in  sap.  It  does  not  look  at  all 
to  the  budding  tendril,  or  grape  at  its  extremity — it  looks 
only  to  the  stock  from  whence  it  gets  its  life  and  power. 

5.  The  fact  that  holiness,  devotedness  must  come  from 
faith  may  be  argued,  once  again,  from  the  broad  platform 
of  gratitude. 

It  has  been  said,  perhaps  not  often,  that  the  Doctrine  of 

Free  Grace  leads  to  licentiousness that  if  men  know  they 

are  saved  they  will  take  liberty  to  sin — they  will  run  riot 
in  iniquity  for  that  grace  abounds. 

This  has  been  said,  but  only  by  men  who  never  have 
tried  it.  No  Christian  has  ever  said:  "Let  us  sin  that  grace 
may  abound," — and  even  men  who  are  not  Christians  have 
rarely  ventured  an  assertion  so  diabolical  as  this :  "God 
is  merciful — He  is  good — therefore  let  us  treat  Him  as  badly 
as  ever  we  can."  If  God  is  good  to  the  undeserving,  some 
men  perhaps  will  make  His  goodness  an  excuse  for  running 
into  sin — but  there  are  others  and  always  will  be — of  another 
order — whom  the  goodness  of  God  leads  to  repentance. 
They  scorn  the  "beast-like  argument" — that  the  more  loving 
God  is  the  more  infamous  we  may  become.  They  feel  that 
against  a  God  who  saves  them  freely,  it  is  a  dastardly 
thing  to  rebel. 

Our  Holiness,  then,  must  come  and  only  come — by  faith, 
from  Christ  as  our  substitute. 

This  fact  established,  let  us  notice. 

III.  And  briefly — fchat  such  a  holiness  transcends  all 
other  holiness  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man — Rather  poor 
works  on  this  principle  than  splendid  works  on  any  other. 

One  thing;  the  principle  gives  all  the  glory  to  God. 
Everything  for  us — in  us,  or  of  us,  that  qualifies  for  heaven, 
is  of  God. 


280  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Suppose  it  otherwise — suppose  I  am  to  trust  Christ  to 
open  the  way  for  me — to  make  it  possible  for  me  to  be 
saved,  and  then  I  am  myself  to  make  that  possibility  actual. 
Suppose  I  am  to  trust  in  Jesus  and  then  do  the  best  I  can 
and  live  consistently — with  the  proviso  that  this  doing  the 
best  I  can — this  consistent  living,  enters  in  as  a  factor  to 
save  me.  Who  does  not  see,  in  such  a  case,  that  really  I 
save  myself? — Since  all  my  trusting  Christ  amounts  to 
nothing — without  my  own  obedience? 

If,  then,  on  such  a  double  ground  I  am  saved,  I  do  not 
owe  it  all  to  Christ,  but  a  part  and  a  good  part  to  myself. 
I  therefore  cannot  give  all  the  glory  and  credit  to  Christ. 
It  would  not  be  right.  In  justice  to  myself  I  must  say:  "I 
owe  it  to  Christ,  but  also  to  my  own  exertions  that  I  am 
in  heaven !"  Who  cannot  see  how  this  introduces  discord 
into  the  song:  "Unto  Him  that  loved  us  and  washed  us 
in  His  own  Blood — to  Him  be  the  glory  forever  and  ever, 
Amen !" 

The  man  who  trusts  to  Christ  alone  to  save  him 
prefers  to  be  saved  on  a  ground  that  is  nobler  than 
any  other. 

Suppose  a  man  offers  me  a  $50,000  house  and  lot  for 
nothing  and  I  consent  to  take  it  for  nothing  and  owe  it  all 
to  him, — do  I  not  do  him  a  greater  honor  than  if  I  were  to 
say:  "This  house  and  lot  are  worth  $50,000.  You  offer 
to  give  it  to  me.  I  accept  the  offer  on  the  condition  that 
I  earn  and  pay  down  $50 — then  I  can  say,  /  bought  it  in 
part." 

What  should  we  think  of  such  a  proposition  as  that?  It 
looks  mean  enough,  put  that  way,  does  it  not?  Yet  that  is 
precisely  what  men  say  when  they  say  "We  are  saved,  for 
what  Christ  did,  provided  we  do  something  too — the  best 
that  we  can."  The  man  who  trusts  on  Christ  only,  swings 
off  on  God's  promise  only  and,  now  and  forever,  gives  all 
the  glory  to  God.  For  my  part,  I  would  rather  be  saved  by 
Christ  for  nothing  and  give  Him  the  glory,  than  have  any 
works  of  mine  come  in  to  spoil  it,  if  I  could.    But 

Once  again,  and  finally — Poor  works  upon  this  principle 
of  grace  are  better,  every  way,  than  splendid  works  on 
any  other. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  281 

What  does  a  man  care  most  for  in  his  wife  or  child? 
Confidence.  It  is  not  that  the  woman  does  so  well,  or  ill — 
that  she  is  this,  that  or  the  other, — that  she  is  beautiful, 
graceful,  accomplished.  Better  a  woman  with  a  plain  face 
who  trusts  you  implicitly,  than  a  woman  who  looks  like 
an  angel  and  don't.  Better  a  woman  with  few  accomplish- 
ments whose  whole  heart  hangs  upon  you  in  a  loving  faith, 
than  one  who  is  perfect  in  all  that  she  does  and  yet  cannot 
believe  a  word  that  you  utter,  or  trust  you  out  of  her 
sight. 

What  a  man  asks  from  his  child  is  his  confidence.  It  is 
not  that  the  child  helps  his  father — All  the  child  does  may 
have  to  be  done  over  again  but  he  does  it  out  of  love  and 
the  father  accepts  and  praises  even  a  paltry  and  good  for 
nothing  performance. 

Your  little  girl  4  years  old  writes  you  a  letter.  It  is 
nothing  but  a  scrawl.  You  cannot  make  head  nor  tail  to 
it — but  down  in  the  corner,  in  great,  wide  misshapen  capi- 
tals you  read  K,  I,  S  and  you  see  a  round  mark  where  her 
lips  have  touched  the  paper — and  you  call  that  the  finest 
letter  you  ever  received  in  your  life, — not  because  it  is 
fine  in  itself,  but  because  of  the  motive — "She  hath  done 
what  she  could."  She  did  not  write  the  letter  in  order  to 
be  made  your  daughter,  but,  becouse  she  is  your  dear 
daughter  now. 

Now  I  have  tried  my  best — in  very  plain  words,  level  to 
every  mind  present — to  show  each  man  and  woman  and  boy 
and  girl  within  this  house  that  to  be  a  Christian  is  just  for  a 
poor,  helpless,  death-doomed  sinner  to  accept  and  rest  on 
Christ  and  leave  the  rest  to  Him — to  hang  upon  Him  by 
faith  to  save  us  and  to  keep  us  and  fill  out,  purify  and 
energize  our  lives.  Who,  this  morning,  will  do  this  Saviour 
the  honor  of  trusting  his  soul  in  His  hands? 

What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved?  "Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  No  wit  nor  art  of 
man  will  ever  find  a  crack  or  a  flaw  in  that  answer  or  ever 
devise  another  and  a  better  answer.  It  takes  in  the  whole 
duty  of  man, — his  first  duty — his  one  duty — his  indispens- 
able duty.  There  is  no  middle  way  between  Belief  and  Un- 
belief— for  we  must  know  that  believing  on  the  Lord  Jesus 


282  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Christ  for  salvation  is  more  pleasing  to  God  than  all  obedi- 
ence to  His  law  without  it — while  unbelief — refusing  to 
believe  is  the  most  provoking  to  God — and  the  most  damn- 
ing to  the  man — of  all  his  sins. 

My  last  word  is  this: 

The  simplest  trust  on  Christ  to  save — that  is  honest — 
will  save  any  man's  soul.  If  not — if  he  won't  trust  Him, 
he  ought  to  be  damned,  and  he  will  be — "He  that  believeth 
not,  shall  be  damned." 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  283 


THE  WOMAN  OF  SAMARIA  AND  THE  EFFECT- 
UAL CALL. 

John  iv  :26. 
"Jesus  saith  unto  her — I  that  speak  unto  thee,  am  He." 

The  chapter  before  us  this  morning,  must  be  considered 
not  only  as  "one  of  the  most  soul-winning  parts  of  God's 
Word,"  but  as  combining — with  its  direct  application — in 
a  most  wonderful  manner  the  grand  and  distinguishing 
doctrines  of  grace.  All  through  the  chapter,  and  under- 
neath our  Lord's  Interview  with  the  Woman  of  Sychar, 
were  the  invisible  lines  of  those  Eternal  fundamental  truths 
which  constitute  the  Christian  system.  In  following  those 
lines,  I  take  it — we  shall  come  to  a  better  apprehension  of 
what  the  Divine  life  is  and  how  we  are  to  obtain  it,  than 
in  any  other  way. 

Regard  then,  I  pray  you,  three  things  in  this  chapter — 
Predestination — Helplessness  and  the  Effectual  Call. 

I.  Predestination — "He  must  needs  go." 

It  was  a  moral  need,  not  a  physical  need.  The  ordinary 
route  from  Judea  to  Galilee  was  not  through  Samaria,  but 
skirting  it  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan.  The  Jews, 
avoiding  as  much  as  could  be,  complication  and  even  inter- 
course with  the  mongrel  Samaritan  people,  took  the  easier 
and.  if  a  little  more  roundabout — more  comfortable  way 
which  led  through  Perea  and  Decapolis  to  the  southern 
shores  of  Gennesaret. 

The  "Need"  was  a  moral  one.  He  must  needs  go  that 
way  because  it  had  been  decreed  that  He  should  go  that 
way,  and  because  there  was  an  Elect  Soul  in  Samaria  whom 
He  must  rescue. 

We  shall  never  understand  the  Gospel  unless  we  go  back 
to  the  primal  truth  of  Predestination  which  puts  God  first — ■ 
which  makes  the  choice  His  before  it  is  ours  and  which — 


284  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

in  due  time — brings  His  grace  to  bear  upon  us  with  its 
irresistible  power. 

For,  we  must  understand  that  in  the  work  of  Salvation 
the  Three  August  Persons  of  the  Holy,  undivided  Trinity 
are  equally  engaged.  We  shall  never  see  things  rightly 
until  we  see  God  the  Father  in  Eternal  Covenant  choosing 
from  this  fallen  race  of  ours  a  multitude  whom  no  man 
can  number  and  giving  them  to  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son.  Nor 
shall  we  ever  see  things  rightly  until  we  see  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father,  receiving  that  people  on 
condition  that  He  should  redeem  them,  by  His  Blood  out 
of  every  kindred  and  tongue  and  people  and  nation, — into 
which  mutual  agreement  the  Holy  Spirit  also  entered  pledg- 
ing Himself,  in  due  time,  to  move  upon  and  draw  home 
to  Christ,  all  who  were  thus  in  Eternity  given  Him  of  the 
Father. 

This  truth  we  find  made  very  clear  and  explicit  in  the 
Holy  Scriptures — as  in  Ps.  lxxxix:io,  and  4 — "Then  Thou 
spakest  in  vision  to  Thy  Holy  One  and  saidst,  I  have  laid 
help  upon  One  that  is  mighty — I  have  made  a  covenant 
with  my  chosen — I  have  sworn  to  the  Beloved  My 
Servant,  Thy  seed  will  I  establish  forever  and  build  up 
Thy  throne  to  all  generations."  So  again  in  Isa.  liii  :8 
where  we  read — "For  the  transgression  of  My  people  was 
He  stricken,"  and  again — vs.  10:  It  pleased  the  Lord  to 
bruise  Him:  He  hath  put  Him  to  grief:  when  He  shall 
make  His  Soul  an  offering  for  sin,  He  shall  see  His  seed ; 
He  shall  prolong  His  days  and  the  purpose  of  the  Lord 
shall  prosper  in  His  hands.  So  too  and  more  explicitly  in 
the  New  Testament,  as  Eph.  i  :3~5,  "Blessed  be  the  God  and 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  hath  blessed  us  with 
all  spiritual  blessings  in  heavenly  places,  in  Christ,  accord- 
ing as  He  hath  chosen  us  in  Him  before  the  foundation  of 
the  world  that  we  should  be  holy  and  without  blame 
before  Him ;  in  love  having  predestinated  us  unto  the  adop- 
tion of  children  by  Jesus  Christ  to  Himself  according  to 
the  good  pleasure  of  His  will." 

Election  is  of  persons — Predestination  is  of  things.  All 
the  great  movements  of  the  universe  are  regulated  by  God's 
will, — But,  if  the  great  movements,  then  the  small  move- 
ments, for  the  great  depend  upon  the  small.    It  was  predes- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  285 

tinated  that  our  Saviour  should  go  through  Samaria  be- 
cause there  was  a  chosen  sinner  there.  And  that  sinner  was 
a  chosen  sinner  for  if  not  she  never  would  have  chosen 
God,  or  known  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  whole  machinery 
of  grace  was  therefore  set  in  motion  in  the  direction  of  one 
poor  lost  sinner,  that  she  might  be  restored  to  her  Saviour 
and  to  her  God. 

That  is  what  we  wish  to  see  in  our  own  experience,  my 
beloved.  To  look  back  of  ante-mundane  ages  and  date  our 
eternal   life   from   the  covenant — to   say: 

Father  'twas  Thy  love  that  knew  us, 
Earth's  foundations  long  before ; 

That   same   love   to   Jesus   drew    us 
By  its  sweet  constraining  power, 

And  will  keep  us 

Safely  now  'and  evermore. 

What  came  from  eternity  will  last  to  eternity,  what  came 
from  yesterday  will  last  only  till  to-morrow.  See  now  the 
depthless  comfort  wrapt  up  in  the  doctrine  of  election.  A 
nut  it  is,  with  a  rough  shell,  but  the  most  delicious  of 
kernels.  "I  have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting  love,  there- 
fore with  loving  kindness  have  I  drawn  thee !"  Have  I 
reason  to  believe  that  grace  has  touched  my  wandering  and 
wayward  heart — my  hard  heart,  my  lost  heart  and  melted 
and  drawn  me?  Then  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  God 
has  loved  me  with  an  everlasting  love,  and  if  so,  He  will 
not  cease  loving  me  to-morrow — nor  next  year — nor  10,000 
years  from  now.  Eternity  compels  eternity.  I  will  never 
leave  thee — I  will  never  forsake ! 

We  thus  understand  why  the  Lord  most  needs  go  through 
Samaria.  There  was  an  elect  soul  there — one  of  those 
given  Him  from  eternity,  by  the  Father,  whom  He  must 
save.  Dear  Brother,  dear  Sister, — if  you  are  one  of  God's 
people  there  is  a  "needs  be"  put  on  Jesus  Christ  to  save 
you.  If  you  are  still  unconverted,  He  will  have  you  yet. 
However  you  struggle  and  contend  against  Him — however 
deeply,  as  this  woman,  and  in  the  very  same  way  you 
may  be  sinning,  He  will  overtake  and  conquer  you — He 
is  even  now  on  the  way. 


286  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

You  see,  Jesus  was  before-hand  with  this  woman.  He 
was  at  the  well  first.  The  woman  knew  nothing  about 
Him.  She  did  not  expect  Him.  She  did  not  expect  to  be 
converted  that  day.  That  was  the  last  thing  she  did  ex- 
pect. She  ventured  out  to  draw  water  at  noon — a  most 
unusual  hour,  in  order  that  she  might  not  be  seen.  A 
woman  like  her — shunned  by  other  women,  did  not  care  to 
meet  any  one.  She  took  an  odd  time  to  get  to  the  well, — 
"No  one  will  be  there,"  she  said.  Poor  lonely  creature — 
Poor  lonely  desolate  heart ! 


WONDER  OF   WONDERS  ! 

There  was  One  there  to  meet  her — One  who  had  been 
waiting  for  her — "Sitting  thus  on  the  well." 

Jesus  knew  all  about  her.  He  was  there  waiting.  He 
could  hardly  wait.  Everlasting  love,  pent  up  in  Him,  could 
hardly  restrain  itself — So  impatient  was  He  to  win  this 
poor,  lost  one  to  purity,  to  hope,  to  heaven. 

Jesus  was  first.  He  always  is  first — as  He  was  with 
Zaccheus — as  He  was  with  Saul  on  the  road  to  Damascus — 
as  He  was  with  Lydia  when  He  opened  her  heart. 

Jesus  is  first — the  Alpha,  the  Genesis,  the  beginning  of 
everything  good.  Good  there  is  not  in  us — not  one  right 
thought — not  one  penitent  longing — not  one  slightest  will- 
ingness to  trust  till  He  inspires  it. 

God  must  begin.  Nature  can  never  rise  above  itself — 
Water  in  a  reservoir  will  never  lift  itself  above  the  brim. 
There  must  be  the  touch  of  the  Lord  upon  us — there  must 
be  the  pressure  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  us  before  we  will 
either  ask  or  act.  We  do  not  know  this  at  first.  We  find 
it  out  afterward.  We  pray  as  if  we  were  praying  of  our 
own  motion — We  trust  as  if  we  were  trusting  all  of  our- 
selves. And  it  is  our  business  to  do  so — to  ask  and  to  act 
as  if  there  were  no  Holy  Spirit  at  all.  Afterward  we  come 
to  realize  that  there  was  a  previous  motion  of  the  Spirit  in 
our  heart  before  there  could  have  been  a  motion  of  our 
heart  to  Christ.  In  the  woman  of  Samaria,  there  is  no 
question  of  our  Saviour's  seeking  her  before  she  ever 
thought  of  seeking  Him, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  2S7 

"  'Twas    not    that    I    did    choose    Thee 
For  Lord,  that  could  not  be; 
This  heart  would  still  refuse  Thee, 
But  Thou  hast  chosen  me. 

"  'Twas  Sovereign  mercy  called  me, 

And  taught  my  opening  mind; 
The  world  had  else  enthralled  me, 
To  heavenly  glories  blind. 

My  heart  owns  none  above  Thee, 
For  Thy  rich  grace  I  thirst ; 
This  knowing,  if  I  love  Thee, 
Thou  must  have  loved  me  first." 

II.  The  second  thing  in  the  story  is  the  woman's  help- 
lessness. 

"Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Give  Me  to  drink!"  His  intention 
was  the  living  water.  The  woman  could  not  understand 
that.  She  took  Him  literally  as  meaning  the  dead  water 
of  the  well.  She  did  not  even  give  Him  this.  She  never 
gave  Him  anything.  If  salvation  is  to  depend  upon  our 
giving  God  anything,  we  are  lost  already.  We  can  never 
give  Him  anything  that  is  spiritual.  It  is  not  in  us,  nor 
can  we  procure  it  to  give. 

Our  Saviour  began  by  saying  to  the  sinful  woman,  "Give 
Me  to  drink!"  That  was  to  put  her  face  to  face  with  her 
helplessness.  Afterward  He  said :  "If  thou  knewest  the 
gift  of  God  thou  wouldest  have  asked  of  Him."  Preachers 
and  teachers  sometimes  say,  "Give  your  heart  to  Jesus."  It 
is  right  enough  to  give  Him  our  hearts.  We  must  do  it — 
rather  we  will  do  it  the  moment  we  trust  Him.  But  the 
Gospel  is  not  "Give  your  heart  to  Christ  and  you  shall  be 
saved."  The  Gospel  is  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  When  we  do  that  we  will  be  sure 
to  give  Him  our  hearts  by  and  by  if  not  at  once.  "Give 
your  heart  to  Christ,"  says  one,  "is  law  rather  than  Gospel." 
Salvation  is  not  by  your  giving  anything  to  Christ,  but 
by  His  giving  something  to  you.  Glad  I  am  if  you  have 
given  your  heart  to  Christ,  but  have  you  learned  first  this 
lesson  that  He  gave  His  heart  for  you?     We  do  not  find 


288  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Salvation  by  giving  Christ  anything.  That  is  the  fruit  of  it 
— but  salvation  comes  by  Christ  giving  us  something — 
Something,  did  I  say?  By  His  giving  us  everything,  by 
His  giving  us  Himself.  I  am  afraid  that  a  good  deal  of 
Sunday  School  teaching — I  do  not  say  among  us — but  in 
general,  has  been,  "Dear  child,  love  Jesus."  That  is  not  the 
way  of  salvation.  The  way  of  salvation  is  to  trust  Jesus." 
The  fruit  of  salvation  is  love  but  love  is  not  the  way.  We 
are  not  saved  by  love  which  is  a  feeling  but  by  faith  which 
is  not  a  feeling  but  a  definite,  intelligent  act.  The  way  of 
salvation  is  to  take  Christ — to  trust  Christ.  When  we  are 
saved,  the  proof  of  it  will  be  that  we  will  give  our  hearts 
to  Christ, — but  let  us  not  make  a  mistake  here,  and  turn 
things  upside  down  and  put  effect  for  cause,  lest,  begin- 
ing  with  a  little  blunder,  we  should  go  on  to  greater  error 
and  set  up  again  the  ruinous  doctrine  of  Rome  which  once 
sank  the  whole  world  in  darkness — the  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion by  sanctification — by  something  in  me  which  I  bring 
to  Christ — by  love  which  faith  works  and  not  by  faith 
which  works  love. 

We  never  preach  the  Gospel  until  we  point  the  sinner 
— any  sinner,  the  dead,  the  cold,  the  careless  hesitating  sin- 
ner straight  to  Jesus  Christ  to  save  him.  Not  by  anything 
in  himself,  but  by  everything  outside  of  himself  is  he 
saved — not  because  he  is  trying  to  be  better,  or  because  he 
has  some  good  desires, — but — like  this  woman,  sin-stained 
— at  his  very  worst  and  lowest,  at  the  6th  hour — i.  e.,  in 
extremis — 6  means  dead-failure — he  is  to  trust  Christ. 
Ragged,  penniless,  forsaken,  desolate,  forlorn,  with  no  good 
feelings  and  with  no  good  hopes  we  are  to  trust,  just  as 
we  are,  over  on  the  one  only  solid  foundation — Jesus  Christ 
and  leave  it  all  with  Him.  Recollect  that  the  Gospel  is 
preached  not  to  saints,  or  to  people  who  partly  are  saints — 
who  have  a  little  love  in  their  hearts — a  little  right  feeling 
— some  incipient  sanctification, — Not  at  all.  It  is  to  an 
empty  sinner  with  an  empty  water-pot — just  a  lost  sinner 
and  nothing  but  a  lost  sinner,  that  a  full  Christ  is  presented 
— a  Christ  who  died  not  for  the  good  that  is  in  us  but 
for  the  bad  that  is  in  us.  It  is  not  to  people  who  are  try- 
ing, but  to  people  who  have  tried  and  broken  down,  that 
lesus  Christ  is  preached — to  whom,  naked,  they  are  to  come 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  289 

for  righteousness,  and  empty  for  all  they  require.  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  work  is  the  Bridge  which  fills  every  inch 
and  hair-breadth  of  the  way — for  the  vilest  sinner  out  of 
hell,  from  the  spot  where  he  is  standing — to  the  highest 
glory  which  surrounds  the  throne.  The  call  is,  Look  unto 
Me  and  be  ye  saved  all  ye  ends  of  the  earth — "all  ye  devil's 
cast-aways" — as  Whit f eld  put  it — all  ye  selvage  edges  and 
worn  out  ends  of  creation — The  call  is  to  trust. 

Let  us  notice,  then, 


III.  That  call — that  effectual  call,  for  there  are  calls 
that  are  not  effectual.  There  are  men  who  have 
heard  the  pure  Gospel  preached  all  their  life-time 
who  nevertheless  have  lost  their  souls,  and  gone  down  to 
perdition. 

There  were  many  such  men  under  St.  Paul's  preaching 
for  he  says :  "We  are  unto  God,  a  sweet  savor  of  Christ 
in  them  that  are  saved,  and  in  them  that  perish.  To  the 
one  we  are  the  savor  of  death  unto  death  and  to  the  other 
the  savor  of  life  unto  life  and  who  is  sufficient  for  these 
things?  Again  he  says:  "If  our  Gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid 
to  them  that  are  lost.  In  whom  the  God  of  this  world  hath 
blinded  the  minds  of  them  that  believe  not,  lest  the  light 
of  the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ,  who  is  the  image  of  God, 
should  shine  unto  them."  Multitudes  of  men  heard  Lu- 
ther preach  who  themselves  were  never  justified  by  faith. 
Multitudes  heard  Whitfield  preach  who  were  not  perman- 
ently affected.  Under  Jonathan  Edwards,  perhaps  the 
plainest,  certainly  the  most  awful  preacher  America  has 
ever  known,  there  were  men  who  steeled  their  hearts  and 
would  none  of  it. 

The  Word  of  God  mentions  two  kinds  of  calls :  One 
general  which  is  given  sincerely  and  lovingly  to  every  one 
who  hears  the  Word.  The  Commission  reads :  "Go  ye  into 
all  the  world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature." 
The  trumpet  of  the  Gospel  sounds  aloud  to  every  man  in 
all  our  congregations,  "Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye 
to  the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  no  money ;  come  ye,  buy  and 
eat ;  yea,  come,  buy  wine  and  milk  without  money  and  with- 


290  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

out  price.  Unto  you  O  men  I  call,  and  my  voice  is  to  the 
sons  of  men." 

This  call  is  sincere  on  God's  part ;  but  man  is  by  nature 
so  opposed  to  God — so  dead  in  sin — so  stupefied  with  carnal- 
ity— so  fascinated  with  the  world,  that  he  never  heeds  it, 
or,  if  startled,  shakes  it  off  again.  No  man  was  ever  saved 
by  the  general  call  of  the  Gospel.  Its  only  effect  is  to  con- 
demn those  who  hear  it — to  leave  them  without  excuse  be- 
cause they  will  not  take  up  with  a  free,  kind  offer  on  God's 
part,  but  will  refuse  it  and  perish. 

The  universal  call  is  universally  rejected.  It  is  addressed 
to  freewill,  for  man  fancies  he  has  a  free  will — but  free- 
will in  man  acts  only  one  way  and  that  is  in  opposition  and 
enmity  to  God  and  against  God.  It  can  act  only  that  way 
for  free-will  was  ruined  in  Eden,  and  now  is  a  slave. 

The  universal  call  is  all  that  it  ought  to  be  as  a 
call — but  it  needs  a  change  in  the  man.  It  is  not  attended 
with  that  Divine  force  and  energy  of  the  Spirit  which 
makes  it  an  unconquerable  call.  It  comes  with  the  common 
influences  of  the  Spirit  which — however  powerful  and 
alarming — men  may  resist.  It  does  not  come  with  the 
irresistible  force  which  makes  it  effectual.  It  falls  flat  and 
men  perish  under  it,  howover  loud  and  clear,  or  urgent  and 
persuasive  it  may  be. 

Not  so  the  effectual  call — the  call  which  this  woman  of 
Sychar  received ;  that  is  "a  special,  particular,  personal,  dis- 
criminating, efficacious  and  unconquerable  call."  It  is  a 
call  given  to  God's  chosen  and  to  them  only.  They,  by 
grace  hear  it  and  obey  it  and  cannot  resist  it.  They  do 
not  wish  to  resist  it,  for  they  are  made  willing  in  the  day 
of  God's  power.  Such  a  call  was  that  given  to  Lazarus 
when  he  came  forth  from  the  dead.  Such  a  call  was  that 
given  to  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus,  when — struck  from 
his  horse, — "he  fell  down,"  as  Toplady  says,  "a  Free-wilier, 
to  rise  a  Free-gracer"  and  give  all  the  glory  to  God. 

But  this  call — while  in  all  cases  equally  effective — is  not 
always,  nor  most  times,  with  a  shock.  It  is  not  always  ar- 
resting— like  a  blast  of  dynamite,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Philippian  jailer,  a  brutal  hardened  man,  the  kind  of  man 
who  in  trouble  is  ready  to  stab  himself  to  the  heart — dying 
the  death  of  a  coward  and  dog.     But,  it  is  oftener  gentle — 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  291 

almost  unconscious ;  opening  the  heart — as  Lydia's  was 
opened,  softly — like  a  morning-glory  to  the  rising  sun.  Thus 
the  call  came  to  the  woman  at  the  well — indirectly,  gently 
apparently  along  natural  lines,  while  working  its  sure  and 
blessed  result. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  manner  of  the  call.  It  pro- 
ceeds in  a  way  of  light,  of  conviction — of  revelation.    And, 

I.  In  the  way  of  light.  No  doubt  there  are  people  who 
know  what  salvation  means  and  who  deliberately  reject  it. 
But  there  are  many  more  who  do  not  know  what  it 
means — to  whom,  if  you  speak  of  being  saved  at  once  and 
entirely  by  what  the  Son  of  God  has  done  in  our  behalf, 
you  speak  a  strange  language.  This  woman's  only  notion 
of  religion  was  something  which  she  ztras  to  do  herself — 
a  worship  on  a  certain  mountain  and  with  certain  ceremon- 
ies— "Ye  worship,"  said  Jesus — "Ye  know  not  what."  Many 
will  be  lost  through  ignorance.  They  do  not  know — they 
do  not  care  to  know.  Shrewd,  quick,  intelligent,  investigat- 
ing, they  are,  as  to  other  subjects,  but  religion,  with  them, 
gets  the  go  by.  To  all  such,  the  word  comes,  solemnly,  as 
to  the  woman  of  Samaria — "If  thou  knezvest  the  Gift  of 
God — What  it  is — what  it  is  worth  to  thee — that  Hell  may 
be  escaped  and  Heaven  had  for  nothing — thou  wouldest 
have  applied  to  the  Great  Giver  and  He  would  have  giv^n 
thee  the  living  water,  the  water  which  relieves,  refreshes, 
satisfies — peace — a  new  principle — indestructable,  eternal. 

Light,  in  this  lower  world,  comes  in  by  degrees.  Were 
the  sun  to  rise  all  at  once  in  noon-tide  splendor,  he  would 
blind  us.  The  Carthaginians  tortured  Regulus  by  cutting 
off  his  eyelids  and  keeping  him  in  a  dark  cell  for  three  days 
— then  instantly  bringing  him  out  into  the  sunshine. 

The  Lord,  in  bringing  us  to  Himself,  deals  with  us  in 
infinite  mercy.  It  is  said  in  one  place — "His  going  forth 
shall  be  like  the  morning," — Little  by  little  black  night  gives 
way  to  gray  twilight  and  this  to  growing,  glowing,  rosy 
dawn. 

So  is  it  in  spiritual  things.  Our  Saviour  gently  leads 
us.  Gently,  He  led  this  woman.  First  by  an  indirection — 
Jesus  saith  unto  her,  "Give  Me  to  drink."  "When  you 
are  fishing,"  one  has  said,  "it  is  not  always  wise  to  throw  the 


292  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

fly  straight  at  the  fish's  mouth.  It  is  better  to  try  him  a 
little  one  side — then  you  may  get  a  bite."  Our  Saviour 
threw  the  fly  one  side,  and  yet  so  skilfully  along  the  current 
of  the  woman's  thought  that  she  was  immediately  interested. 
He  did  not  frighten  her  by  saying — "You  are  a  sinner !" 
Nor  did  He  overwhelm  her  by  saying :  "I  am  the  Messiah," 
but — since  she  had  come  for  water  and  was  thinking  about 
water,  He  spoke  of  water  as  the  most  natural  subject — 
thus  gliding  by  a  subtle  gentle  sympathy  into  this  woman's 
"deeper  musings  ere  she  was  aware." 

And  mark  again :  This  gentleness  of  Jesus.  There  is 
nothing  stiff  or  starched  about  Him — nothing  cold  and 
chilling  as  there  sometimes  is  with  people  who  would  like 
to  do  us  good.  There  looked  through  every  feature  of 
His  blessed  face  and  glistened  in  His  mild  blue  eyes  such 
a  deep,  real  interest  and  heartfelt  love  that  the  woman, 
though  she  did  not  wish  to  meet  Him,  and  though  she  was 
prejudiced  against  Him  as  a  foreigner  and  Jew, — melted 
little  by  little.  The  ice  around  her  heart  began  to  thaw. 
She  felt,  "Here  is  One  who  cares  for  me  and  who  can 
understand." 

Mark  again,  right  here,  the  promptness  with  which  the 
Lord  addressed  her.  He  not  only  used  great  tact  and  ten- 
derness, but  He  struck  while  the  iron  zvas  hot.  How  often 
we  fail  at  this  point.  We  procrastinate — we  are  afraid  to 
speak — we  hesitate,  and  the  occasion  goes  by  as  it  did  with 
Dr.  Chalmers  when  he  passed  a  pleasant  evening  at  his 
country-house  with  an  unconverted  friend.  He  thought  that 
he  ought  and  that  he  would  speak  to  him  about  his  soul, 
but  deferred  it.  In  the  morning  he  was  shocked  to  find  that 
his  friend — during  the  night — had  suddenly  passed  away. 
Our  Lord  knew  that  He  would  never  see  this  woman  again : 
— that  it  was  now  or  never, — and  so  He  did  not  wait  until 
she  had  drawn  the  water  from  the  well  and  was  about  to 
go, — and  so  give  her  an  excuse  for  saying:  "I  cannot 
stop  now — I  must  get  home  with  the  water  and  the  sun  is 
hot,"  but — before  she  could  draw  the  water,  or  get  in  any 
excuse,  He  seized  the  occasion  and  saved  her. 

"In  all  this — what  a  wonderful  wisdom.  No  wonder 
that  Jesus  in  Prov.  viii,  is  called  wisdom — "I,  Wisdom," 
He  says,  "dwell  with  prudence." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  293 

But  this  wisdom  becomes  more  apparent  when  we  see 
how  Jesus  finds  occasion  to  address  this  woman  alone.  He 
sent  His  disciples  away.  He  would  not  have  the  men 
about.  He  could  never  have  said  to  her  what  He  did  had 
any  one  else  been  there.  He  did  not  bare  her  sore  and 
shrinking  heart  before  the  eyes  of  men.  Never  before,  nor 
after  did  He  allude  to  anything  in  her  life  which  might 
put  this  woman  to  embarrassment  or  shame.  What  He 
knew  and  she  knew,  He  kept  to  Himself  and  only  spoke  of  it 
to  her  in  private  as  a  physician  might  because  He  must,  to 
bring  her  to  true  conviction  of  sin. 

That  is  the  second  step  in  the  process.  The  woman  car- 
ries it  with  a  high  hand.  She  begins  to  spar — to  cavil,  to 
fence  with  our  Saviour.  She  raises  one  question  about 
His  being  a  Jew — another  about  His  being  greater  than 
Jacob.  She  turns  the  conversation  this  way  and  that  way. 
She  finds  objections — difficulties.  The  more  immoral  people 
are  the  more  difficulties  they  find  with  religion.  All  their 
difficulties  would  be  gone.  All  their  objections  would  van- 
ish— all  their  excuses  would  evaporate  like  water,  the  mo- 
ment sin — the  secret  sin  which  they  know  and  which  they 
fondly  hope  they  alone  know,  were  put  away. 

Jesus  therefore  leads  up  to  the  sin.  He  does  not  charge 
the  woman  with  it  but  He  leads  her  to  accuse  herself.  Jesus 
saith  unto  her,  "Go  call  thy  husband  and  come  hither.''  The 
woman  answered  and  said  "I  have  no  husband."  While 
she  says  it,  she  tries  to  look  unconcerned — as  innocent  as 
possible — but  the  guilty  flush  steals  over  her  face  in  spite 
of  all  attempts  to  keep  it  back.  Deeper,  deeper,  darkens  the 
crimson.  She  falls  in  a  collapse.  Her  wretched  effort  to 
keep  up  appearances  fails  her.  And  with  her  whole  diseased 
unclean  and  wicked  heart  exposed, — that  desperately  wicked 
heart — that  helplessly  incurable  unhappy  heart,  she  drops 
at  His  ^eet  and  cries,  "I  need  a  Messiah — a  Saviour." 

That  is  the  3rd  step  and  climax — Jesus  reveals  Himself 
as  that  Saviour.  He  had  been  growing  upon  her  with  every 
question  and  answer.  The  humble  weary  Jew  had  become 
greater  than  Jacob — greater  than  any  prophet.  Now  He 
stood  revealed  as  God  the  Saviour — the  complete,  the  only 
Saviour — "I  that  speak  to  thee,  am  He!" 


294  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"Before  the  eyes  of  faith  confessed, 
Stands  forth  a  slaughtered  Lamb; 

He  wraps  me  in  His  crimson  vest, 
He  tells  me  all  His  Name." 

The  woman  looked  up  confidingly  into  the  face  of  Jesus. 
From  that  moment  He  became  everything  to  her.  She 
trusted  Him  for  the  living  water — for  the  everlasting  life — 
that  He  would  save  her,  and  keep  her, — that  He  would  give 
her  a  new  heart — new  and  welling  up  affections.  In  fact, 
she  felt  differently  toward  Him  already.  She  knew  that  He 
would  carry  on  what  He  had  now  begun,  since  everlasting 
life  means,  life  to   everlasting. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  295 


THE  SECOND  BIRTH— A  FACT,  A  MYSTERY. 

John  iii  :y. 
"Marvel  not  that  I   said  unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born  again." 

The  new  birth  is  a  transcendent  wonder.  No  wonder  like 
that  wonder!  Creatures  as  a  rule — subjected  to  probation 
— when  they  fall,  are  left  where  they  lie  fallen.  It  was  so 
with  fallen  angels, — they  were  left  in  ruin.  But  man,  fallen, 
becomes  a  singular  and  a  unique  exception.  Un-made,  he 
is  re-made.  Marred  as  a  vessel  of  clay,  he  is  revolved  again 
upon  the  Heavenly  Potter's  wheel  and  turned  out  a  vessel 
of  honor. 

The  new  birth  is  an  unspeakable  change !  It  is  the 
greatest  of  wonders.  Physical  birth  is  a  wonder.  Death 
is  a  wonder.  Creation  is  a  greater  wonder.  But  none  of 
these  changes  equal,  for  momentousness,  the  change  which 
the  Bible  describes  as  new  birth.  In  neither  of  these 
changes, — physical  birth — death — creation,  is  anything  fixed 
as  to  destiny.  All  men  are  alike  born — both  saints  and  sin- 
ners. Both  classes  alike  die.  All  things  and  beings  are 
alike  created.  Mere  creation  does  not  determine  whether 
Lucifer  shall  finally  turn  out  a  seraph,  or  a  devil. 

But,  the  new  birth  fixes  the  future.  It  is.  of  all  changes, 
the  most  radical.  It  splits  the  difference  between  Heaven 
and  Hell.  He  who  has  it  goes  to  the  one  place, — he  who 
lacks  it,  goes  to  the  other.  How  awfully  solemn,  therefore, 
is  the  question,  "Am  I  born  again?"  Have  I  ever  under- 
gone that  change  radical  which  makes  over  my  entire  na- 
ture? that  change  which  is  as  great  as  if  a  demon  now  in 
perdition  should  be  transformed  into  a  bright  and  holy 
angel. 

The  Bible  divides  the  entire  world  of  men  into  two 
classes, — only  two  classes,  goats  and  sheep.  The  goats  are 
at  the  left  hand — the  sheep  at  the  right.  Between  them, 
there  is  a  great,  invisible  gulf.  Have  I  passed  over  that 
gulf  ?     Am  I  a  sheep,  or  have  I  still  the  goat-nature  ? 


296  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"Ye  must  be  born  again,"  said  our  Saviour.  The  change 
is  imperative.  "Except  a  man  be  born  again" — born,  not 
only  as  all  men  are  from  below — from  the  flesh,  but  born 
avaoSev  — from  above;  born  not  only  of  water,  as  John's 
disciples  were  born,  but  born  of  the  Spirit,  as  John's  dis- 
ciples were  not, — Born  not  only  by  the  Spirit,  but  born  a 
spirit — i.  e.,  the  thing  born  is  a  spirit — a  new  nature, — 
Born  over  again — anew — from  the  very  beginning.  All  this 
is  involved  in  the  Greek  words  employed  by  our  Saviour. 

Nowhere,  in  the  whole  Bible,  is  a  single  statement  put 
so  strongly,  or  insisted  upon  with  so  emphatic  a  repetition 
as  this — "Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee,  except  a  man  be 
born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  Verily, 
verily  I  say  unto  thee,  except  a  man  be  born  of  water  and 
of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God, — 
That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh;  and  that  which  is 
born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit, — Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto 
thee — "Ye  must  be  born  again." 

Men,  now-a-days  are  saying:  "Back  to  Christ" — "I  do 
not  care  what  Paul  says — I  do  not  care  for  the  Epistles,  I 
go  back  to  the  Gospels !" 

Well !  here  we  are  in  the  Gospels.  Here  we  have  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  forefront  and  beginning  of  John's  Gospel, 
and  His  first  dogmatic  assertion  is,  "Ye  must  be  born 
again !" 

Can  anything  be  more  important  than  to  ask  what  this 
means? — What  is  the  description,  the  nature,  the  necessity, 
the  origin  of  the  new  birth  ? 

I.  Then,  let  us  seek  out  its  description.  In  the  compari- 
son of  spiritual  things  with  spiritual,  how  do  we  find  the 
change  which  our  Saviour  calls  a  new  birth  represented? 

It  is  spoken  of  as  regeneration—  itaXiv  "again"  and 
yewedia  "birth"  we  find  that  in  Titus  iii  15  "The  washing 
of  regeneration."  It  is  also  spoken  of  in  the  same  place  and 
described  as  the  "renewing"  of  the  Holy  Ghos  ava  xaivcodi? 
the  making  over  from  the  start.  The  same  change  is  spoken 
of  as  xrldis  a  "creation" — "If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he 
is  a  new  creation — so  we  read  "created  anew  in  Christ 
Jesus."  But  the  Word  goes  farther  and  speaks  of  the 
change  as  a  resurrection — "a  rising  again  from  the  dead" 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  297 

and  St.  Paul  tells  us  in  Ephesians  1:19  that  it  is  as  great 
an  operation  of  Almighty  power  as  was  that  which  wrought 
in  Christ  when  He  was  raised  from  the  dead.  He  prays 
that  the  Ephesians  may  understand  this.  The  new  birth 
is  also  spoken  of  as  a  quickening — "You  hath  He  quick- 
ened who  were  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  In  a  line  with 
this,  St.  John  speaks  of  the  new  birth  as  Sitipv-a.,  a  seed 
dropped  into  our  fallen  humanity  which  springs  up  within 
it  as  a  flower  might  spring  up  from  the  bosom  of  a  corpse 
from  a  grave.  "Whosoever  is  born  of  God  doth  not  commit 
sin."  The  flesh  in  him  may,  but  the  new  principle  cannot — 
"for  his  seed  remaineth  in  him  and  he  cannot  sin  because 
he  is  born  of  God."  Light  is  shed  upon  this  by  the  contrast 
of  the  two  natures, — the  old  man  and  the  new.  "The  natural 
man  and  the  spiritual  man,"  says  St.  Paul.  And  St.  Peter 
tells  us  that  the  new-born  are  partakers  of  another,  even 
a  "Divine  nature}'  hazing  escaped  the  corruption  that  is  in 
the  world  through  lust.  The  same  thing  is  represented  in 
Ezekiel's  description — "A  new  heart  also  will  I  give  you, 
and  a  new  spirit  will  I  put  within  you,  and  I  will  take 
away  the  stony  heart  out  of  your  flesh  and  I  will  give  you 
an  heart  of  flesh.' 

Such  are  the  terms  employed — such  is  the  description — 
let  us  now  go  on  to  inquire  a  little  more  particularly. 

II.  As  to  the  nature  of  the  change.  What  is  intended? 
What  it  is  not  and  what  it  is. 

It  is  not  a  change  in  the  very  substance  of  the  soul — as 
if  my  soul  were  taken  out  of  my  body  and  another  soul  put 
in  its  place. 

It  is  not  a  change  in  the  constitution,  or  in  the  faculties 
of  a  man's  soul,  as  if  it  were  no  longer,  in  every  sense,  what 
it  teas — a  human  soul.  The  change  is  not  of  the  faculties 
but  of  the  qualities  of  the  soul. 

Nor  is  it  morality — a  reformation  of  the  soul.  It  were 
a  blasphemous  thought  to  imagine  that  the  Son  of  God 
speaking  to  Nicodemus — that  high-toned,  cultured  ruler  of 
the  Jews, — and  speaking  on  the  most  important  of  sub- 
jects, meant  to  insinuate  that  he  did  not  yet  know  that  a 
man  should  be  moral. 

What  then  is  the  change?    It  is  an  infusion  of  something 


298  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

into  the  soul.  In  every  birth  there  is  a  germ  infused  and  so 
in  this  one.  It  is  the  implanting  in  us  of  a  supernatural, 
permanent,  fixed  principle — something  that  never  was  in  us 
before  and  never  again  will  be  absent. 

It  is  the  infusion  of  a  new  quality.  If  something  could 
be  infused  into  a  man's  veins  that  would  change  his  blood 
from  red  to  whiter — while  still  his  blood  remained  blood — 
that  possibly  would  be  an  illustration  of  this  change. 

It  is  the  infusion  of  a  new  spirit.  Fallen  man  has  a  soul 
and  a  body  but  the  spirit  in  him  is  dead.  It  died  in  Eden. 
He  is  not  therefore  any  longer  a  trinity.  In  the  old 
Tabernacle  there  were  three  things:  The  Holy  Place — that 
represents  the  body.  The  Holy  of  Holies — that  represents 
the  soul.  Then  there  was,  inside  the  Holy  of  Holies,  what 
was  called  the  Shekinah — the  presence  and  glory  of  God 
shining  out  through  the  vail.  That  Shekinah  was  after- 
ward withdrawn  leaving  the  Holy  of  Holies  empty,  and 
so  the  spirit,  the  third  part,  or  element  in  man  has  gone  out 
of  his  soul.  The  new  birth  is  the  restoration  of  this — the 
infusion  of  a  spirit  born  of  the  Spirit. 

The  new  birth  again  is  a  change  of  the  instincts  of  the 
soul — not  of  its  faculties  but  of  its  quality — of  its  deepest 
desires,  tendencies  and  disposition.  A  goat,  in  some  re- 
spects, looks  like  a  sheep — in  size,  in  horns,  both  are  small 
cattle — but  there  is.  a  vast  difference  in  disposition  and  in 
instincts  between  a  goat  and  a  sheep.  One  is  coarse,  lust- 
ful, vicious, — the  other,  gentle,  chaste  and  tame.  A  raven 
and  a  dove  are  both  birds  and  much  alike  in  shape,  but  the 
raven  loves  carrion  and  the  dove  loathes  it. 

The  new  birth  is  the  opposite  of  original,  or  inbred  sin. 
Inbred  sin  does  not  destroy  the  substance  of  the  soul,  but  it 
alters  its  qualities — so  that  the  soul,  before  holy,  becomes  a 
depraved,  polluted,  sinful  soul.  The  new  birth,  the  opposite 
of  this,  makes  the  soul  again  holy.  It  brings  in  a  new 
nature  which  contends  with  and  replaces  the  flesh,  the  viti- 
ated fallen  nature.  It  is  like  Isaac  born  into  the  tent  where 
there  was  only  Ishmael  before.  Now  Ishmael  and  Isaac  will 
contend  until  the  tent — i.e.,  the  body  falls  and  Ishmael  is  cast 
out. 

The  new  birth  is  the  giving  of  a  new  heart.  We  know 
what  that  means.   We  say  of  such  a  man,  "He  has  a  good, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  299 

a  kind  heart."  We  do  not  mean  the  physical  organ.  We 
say  of  another,  "He  has  a  hard  and  cruel,  wicked  heart." 
We  mean  that  his  disposition  is  so,  that  it  is  in  him  to  be 
hard  and  cruel,  as  it  is  in  the  other  man  to  be  kind.  God 
aims  at  the  heart.  He  does  not  so  much  hate  our  sins  as 
He  does  our  sinfulness.  What  we  hate  in  a  serpent  is  not 
simply  that  he  bites,  but  what  he  is. 

The  new  birth  is  the  communication  of  a  life.  Every 
child  has  a  parent.  If  I  am  a  child  of  God,  God  is  my 
parent.  We  have  links  between  the  son  and  the  father  back 
to  Adam.  So  in  regeneration,  there  is  a  life  communicated 
— even  the  very  life  of  God  who  hath  begotten  us  again 
unto  a  lively  hope.  We  are  as  certainly  partakers  of  the 
Divine  nature  by  our  second  birth  as  we  were  of  the  human 
nature  by  our  first  birth.  There  is  nothing  fanciful  about 
this.  It  is  real.  It  is  a  product.  "That  which  is  born 
of  the  Spirit  is  spirit."  It  is  a  creature;  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  not  a  creature. 

And  with  this  new  life  we  get  its  propensities  and  in- 
stincts. The  new  nature,  being  born  of  God,  cannot  but 
love  God.  There  is  a  complete  shifting  of  feelings,  hopes, 
desires  and  aims  and  aspirations : — 

Rivers  to  the  ocean  run, 

Nor  stay  in  all  their  course; 
Fire  ascending,  seeks  the  sun, 

Both  speed  them  to  their  source. 
So  the  soul  that's  born  of  God 

Pants  to  view  His  glorious  face  ; 
Upward  flies  to  His  abode 

To  rest  in  His  embrace. 
The  nature  of  the  new  birth  sheds  light. 

III.  On  its  necessity — "Ye  must  be  born  again."  This 
is  involved  in  the  fall.  By  the  fall,  man's  nature  was  cor- 
rupted— we  mav  even  think  that  a  Satanic  virus  entered 
into  the  human  constitution  when  the  lips  of  Eve  touched 
the  part  of  the  apple  where  the  serpent  had  bitten.  We 
are  fallen  creatures.  That  means  that  we  are  unspiritual 
creatures.  Not  that  some  have  not  offended  against  morality 
more  seriously,  than  others — not  that  some  have  not  sinned 


300  THE  DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE. 

more  deeply  and  terribly  and  damnably  than  others,  but 
that  all  men  by  nature  are  alike  unregenerate — not  that 
some  are  not  singularly  and  exceptionally  beautiful  and 
amiable  and  lovely.  It  is  said  that  our  Saviour,  looking 
upon  the  Young  Ruler,  loved  Him.  He  must  have  been 
loveable  in  some  real  sense  of  the  word,  if  the  Lord  loved 
him,  but  he  was  not  in  the  kingdom  of  God  at  that  time, 
nor  was  he  ever  in  it.  Loveable  and  lovely,  as  he  was,  he 
was  not  born  again. 

The  same  necessity  appears  from  the  character  of  holiness 
and  heaven  and  from  the  fact  that  a  man  to  be  happy  must 
be  in  correspondence  with  his  surroundings.  I  have  some 
beautiful  gold  fishes  at  home  in  a  glass  receptacle,  the  gift 
of  a  dear  friend.  Those  gold  fishes  enjoy  themselves  and 
give  enjoyment  in  their  own  element.  It  is  a  pleasure  to 
watch  their  graceful  movements  in  the  water  and  amid  the 
ferns.  But  take  them  out  and  lay  them  on  a  golden  platter 
exquisitely  chiselled — garnished  with  roses, — fill  the  air 
with  music,  would  they  be  happy?  They  would  be  in  tor- 
ture because  out  of  congeniality  and  correspondence  with 
their  surroundings.  So  would  it  be  with  an  unregenerate 
soul  taken  to  heaven.  The  rarefied  air  of  its  holiness 
would  be  torture — its  music — the  constant  praises  of  God 
an  exquisite  pain. 

"A  profligate  in  the  house  of  prayer,"  says  one — "a  giddy 
worlding  standing  by  a  deathbed — a  drunkard  in  the  com- 
pany of  holy  men,  feel  instinctively  that  they  are  misplaced 
— they  have  no  enjoyment  there.  And  what  enjoyment 
could  unregenerate  men  have  in  God's  kingdom  on  earth, 
or  in  heaven?  Even  the  outward  service  of  the  Sanctuary 
below  is  distasteful  to  them  in  proportion  to  its  spirituality. 
So  long  as  preachers  keep  by  the  pictorial  and  illustrative, 
and  speak  of  the  seasons  of  the  year — the  beautiful  earth 
and  the  ancient  sea,  mountains  and  plains,  rivers  and  lakes 
and  fields  and  flowers  and  sun  and  moon  and  stars  or  treat 
of  conduct  and  ethics,  they  comprehend  the  discourse  and 
applaud  it,  but  when  the  deeply  spiritual  and  eternally  im- 
portant form  the  theme  and  the  preaching  becomes  more 
direct,  they  feel  restless,  uneasy  or  listless  and  declare  it 
to  be  dull,  prosy  and  uninteresting.  If  we  cannot  enjoy 
a   spiritual   discourse,   it  must  be   we   are   lacking  in   the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  301 

spiritual  sense — for  'the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  neither  can  he  know  them  because  they 
are  spiritually  discerned.' 

But  the  Necessity  of  the  new  birth  is  put  beyond  inference 
and  beyond  a  question  by  the  fact  that  God  has  said  it.  Not 
only  would  God  have  to  change  His  nature  before  He  could 
admit  us  to  heaven,  our  nature  being  unchanged,  but  He 
has  put  the  ultimatum — "Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he 
cannot  see  the  knedom  of  God."  What  use  to  try  to  scale 
the  battlements  of  Paradise  when  God  has  said,  No! 

The  Nature  of  the  new  birth  and  its  Necessity,  point  us 
away  then, — in  the 

IV  place  to  its  Origin,  its  Author.  Of  course,  if  it  be 
a  Divine  nature  that  is  to  be  communicated — a  nature  from 
God,  the  work  must  be  Divine. 

It  is  not  therefore  effected  by  Baptism,  nor  by  any  ex- 
ternal rite.  Simon  Magus  was  baptized — but  St.  Paul  after- 
ward says  to  him — "I  perceive  that  thou  art  in  the  gall  of 
bitterness  and  in  the  bond  of  iniquity."  Nicodemus  himself 
was  circumcised  which  was  a  symbol  of  the  new  birth,  but 
Jesus  says  to  him :     "Ye  must  be  born  again !" 

Nor  is  the  new  birth  a  matter  of  heredity.  Some  men 
run  away  with  the  notion  that  because  their  parents  and 
forefathers  have  been  in  the  faith,  they,  therefore,  are  heirs 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  grace  does  not  run  in  the 
veins — "Think  not  to  say  within  yourselves,  we  have  Abra- 
ham to  our  father."  is  the  solemn  protest.  Aaron  Burr  was 
the  son  of  one  of  the  holiest  ministers  who  ever  lived  in  this 
country.  His  father  Aaron  Burr  was  the  first  president  of 
Princeton  and  his  grandfather  was  Jonathan  Edwards,  yet 
he  died  an  infidel  and  in  infamy.  One  generation  may  be 
the  very  opposite  and  contrast  to  another.  No,  grace  does 
not  run  in  the  veins — "which  are  born,"  says  St.  John,  "not 
of  blood !" 

Nor  is  the  new  birth  a  product  of  the  will — the  result 
of  effort  or  of  resolution.  A  man  can  no  more  regenerate 
himself  than  he  can  cause  himself  to  be  born.  It  is  a 
matter  out  of  the  range  of  human  power.  Can  water  rise 
above  its  own  level?  So,  that  which  is  born  of  the  flesh 
cannot  by  any  self -evolution  become  anything  else.     Noth- 


302  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

ing  can  come  out  of  us  but  what  is  in  us  and  that  is  evil  and 
only  evil  and  that  continually.  "It  is  not  of  him  that  will e thy 
says  St.  Paul.  "Which  were  born  not  of  the  will  of  the 
flesh,"  says  St.  John. 

Nor  does  the  new  birth  come  by  the  will  of  other  men. 
We  have  a  saying  that  any  man  can  lead  a  horse  to  water, 
but  no  ten  men  can  make  him  drink.  It  is  not  a  matter 
of  pressure  or  force,  nor  is  it  a  matter  of  persuasion.  We 
might  force  a  person  to  make  a  confession  of  faith  but  un- 
less the  Spirit  of  God  made  him  willing,  our  will — brought 
to  bear,  would  be  nothing.  It  would  effect  only  a  counter- 
feit. 

"We  may  listen  to  the  preacher, 

God's  own  truth  be  clearly  shown ; 
But  we  need  a  greater  teacher, 
From  the  everlasting  throne, 

Application 
Is  the  work  of  God  alone." 

See  now  how  St.  John  sums  up  these  points  in  the  1st 
chapter  of  his  Gospel.  "As  many  as  received  Him  to  them 
gave  He  ability  ekovziav  the  right  as  well  as  power  to  be- 
come the  sons  of  God — which  were  born  not  of  blood,  nor 
of  the  will  of  the  flesh — nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of 
God." 

Men  are  born  again  of  God.  God  sovereignly  interposes. 
Something  is  infused.  In  the  salvation  of  every  person 
there  is  an  actual  putting  forth  of  Divine  power  whereby 
the  dead  sinner  is  quickened — the  unwilling  sinner  is  made 
willing — the  desperately  hard  sinner  has  his  conscience  made 
tender  and  he  who  rejected  God  and  despised  the  Gospel 
offer  is  brought  to  cast  himself  down  at  the  feet  of  Jesus. 

It  is  a  Divine  work  and  it  is  a  gracious  work.  When  God 
puts  a  new  heart  into  a  man  it  is  not  because  he  deserves  a 
new  heart — because  there  was  anything  good  in  his  nature 
which  could  have  prompted  God  to  do  it.  His  own  love 
prompts  him.  His  own  mercy  prompts  him.  Nor  is  it  be- 
cause the  man  cries  for  a  new  heart.  No  man  ever  yet 
did  cry  for  a  new  heart  until  he  had  one.  If  you  are  cry- 
ing for  a  new  heart  my  brother,  my  sister — if  you  are 
seeking  it  earnestly,  wistfully,  .tenderly — the  germs  of  the 
new  heart  are  in  you  already — the  new  heart  is  there. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  303 

The  new  birth  once  more  is  a  victorious  work  of  grace. 
When  God  begins  the  work  of  changing  the  heart,  He  finds 
everything  against  Him.  The  man  rebels,  he  struggles 
against  God.  He  is  determined  not  to  be  saved  if  he  can 
help  it.  Then  God  overcomes  him,  He  melts  him.  The 
man  thinks  better  of  it.  God  resistlessly  conquers  him  at 
last. 

The  new  birth  once  more  is  an  instantaneous  change.  It 
must  be  if  it  be  a  creation.  Something  is,  where  something 
was  not.  In  one  solitary  instant — swifter  than  the  lightning 
flash  God  implants  in  the  springs  of  my  being  away  down 
below  my  consciousness,  the  new  nature.  In  this  I  am 
passive,  then  instantly  I  am  active.  I  become  converted. 
Conversion  is  my  work  turning  to  God.  Regeneration  is 
God's  work  turning  me.  I  turn  because  I  am  turned,  be- 
cause I  am  made  willing.  Regeneration  is  the  secret 
cause.     Conversion  is  the  first  overt  effect. 

"Herein,"  one  will  say,  "is  a  mystery."  It  is  granted  it 
is  a  mystery.  The  Scriptures  declare  it  so.  It  is  a  change 
unintelligible — a  change  so  much  above  our  power  that  we 
cannot  even  understand  how  it  is  produced. 

It  is  a  birth.  It  is  a  hallowed  thing  to  be  born.  Natural 
birth  is  a  mystery.  Spiritual  birth  a  yet  more  solemn  mys- 
tery. 

It  is  a  mystery.  We  do  not  understand  it.  No  man 
ever  yet  understood  it.  Thank  God  we  do  not  need  to 
understand  it.  "The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth  and  thou 
hearest  the  sound  thereof  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh 
and  whither  it  goeth,  so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the 
Spirit." 

It  is  a  mystery,  and  that  drives  us  out  of  ourselves  to  God 
for  its  realization.  It  is  a  mystery  and  therefore  we  are  not 
to  occupy  ourselves  with  it  and  pry  into  ourselves  as  if  we 
could  discover  and  build  on  the  New  Birth  for  salvation. 

The  New  Birth  we  must  know  and  own  as  a  fact,  but  we 
must  not  build  on  it  for  peace.  Not  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  within  us,  but  Christ's  work  outside  of  us  is  the 
ground  of  our  peace.  We  know  that  the  operations  of  the 
Spirit  are  necessary  but  they  are  never  set  forth  as  that  on 
which  our  peace  depends.  For  that — for  salvation  we  must 
look  away  as  helpless  sinners  to  Jesus. 

Is  that  discouraging?     How  is  it  discouraging? 


3<M  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

It  is  only  discouraging  in  one  way.  It  discourages  us 
from  ourselves — from  clinging  to  ourselves  and  hoping  for 
something  from  ourselves,  but  this  does  us  good  because 
it  shuts  us  up  to  Christ — to  trusting  in  Him  to  do  for  us 
what  we  cannot  do  for  ourselves,  to  save  us  and  to  work 
a  new  heart  in  us.  We  are  to  come  to  Him  just  as  we  are, 
with  the  old  heart,  to  have  Him  give  us  the  new  heart.  He 
says  He  will  do  it;  "A  new  heart  will  I  give  you,"  and  we 
are  to  trust  Him  out  and  out  to  keep  His  word.  If  we 
do  this,  from  that  moment  we  are  saved. 

You  see  the  entire  discourse  with  Nicodemus — this  re- 
spectable doctor — was  to  bring  him  down — down  to  see  him- 
self a  lost  sinner, — a  sinner  shut  up  to  Jesus  Christ  for 
everything. 

Then  the  moment  poor  Nicodemus  saw  he  was  lost — that 
dying  as  he  was,  with  his  old  sinful  nature,  he  could  never 
see  heaven — the  moment  he  saw  that,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  pointed  his  eyes  to  the  cross.  He  showed  him  how 
he  Himself  was  to  be  lifted  up  as  the  serpent  was  hung  on 
the  pole ;  how  He  was  to  die  in  the  sinner's  place  that 
the  sinner  might  never  die ;  how  He  was  to  bring  in  all  the 
righteousness  and  all  the  fulness  that  a  sinner  ever  will 
need  and  hang  it  up  in  His  own  perfect  life — a  satisfaction 
and  a  sacrifice — that  whosoever  trusted  in  Him  should  not 
perish. 

The  sinner  is  not  to  look  inside  of  himself  to  see  if  he 
has  got  the  new  heart — to  see  if  he  is  born  again.  Put 
your  finger  if  you  can,  on  a  single  expression  that  would 
fling  poor  Nicodemus  back  upon  himself — to  look  into  him- 
self— to  probe  himself — to  discover  in  himself  right  feel- 
ings— not  one  word  of  it. 

"The  Holy  Spirit,"  our  Saviour  says,  "must  move  upon 
you.  That  is  something  invisible — like  the  wind.  You  do 
not  know  how  it  comes — how  it  works — only  it  moves  you 
inwardly.  It  moves  you  and  gently  and  graciously,  silently 
and  softly  draws  you  in  the  direction  of  Christ.  You  seem 
to  wish  to  follow  Him  now.  Before  you  did  not  wish — 
you  refused  and  would  not. 

Now  you  are  softened.  Now  instead  of  being  averse 
vou  find  yourself  strangely  inclined,  God  bless  you,  my 
brother,  that  is  the  new  heart, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  305 

That  is  the  new  heart — willingness.  If  you  should  ask 
me  I  would  say  it  is  willingness — willingness  to  trust. 

Mystery  or  no  mystery,  the  new  birth  is  yours  if  you  are 
a  believer.  "Whosoever  believeth  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ," 
says  this  same  John,  "is  born  of  God." 

You  are  born  again  if  you  are  trusting  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
— trusting  Him  wholly  to  save  you.  No  matter  how  you 
came  to  do  it  or  how  you  come  to  do  it.  "He  that  believeth 
on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life." 


306  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


KEPT  FROM  FALLING. 

Gal.  v:4 
"Ye  are  fallen  from  grace." 

The  question  of  the  perpetuity  of  grace  is  the  question 
of  a  genuine  Gospel.  Is  Grace  permanent,  then  is  the 
Gospel  a  reality.  Is  Grace  temporary,  then  is  the  Gospel 
a  will  o'  the  wisp,  a  phantom  benediction,  a  dream  of  blessed- 
ness from  which  one  wakes,  or  may  awake,  to  find  himself 
bereft  of  all  that  raptured  him — that  spoke  its  promise  to 
the  ear  but  broke  it  to  the  hope. 

Can  a  man  who  has  real  grace  lose  it?  The  answer  to 
this  question  decides  our  religion.  The  Permanence  of 
grace  is  the  outlying  bastion  of  the  fortress  of  truth,  the 
first  point  of  attack  and  the  point  which  established,  obliges, 
secures  and  rivets  to  eternal  fixedness  the  entire  interdepend- 
ent and  mutually  self  supporting  scheme  or  plan  of  salvation, 
which  God  has  revealed. 

Every  false  religion  on  earth  denies  the  perpetuity  of 
grace  and  makes  salvation  more  or  less  dependent  upon 
our  own  improvement  of  our  advantages,  our  own  obedi- 
ence, morality,  resolves,  thoughts,  feelings,  conduct, — in 
one  word,  our  efforts  and  our  merits. 

The  one  differentiating  point  then  between  the  religion  of 
the  Bible  and  every  other  religion  upon  earth, — Christian, 
so  called,  or  non-Christian — is  the  question  whether  a  man 
gets  from  Christ,  in  conversion,  a  life  which  he  can  lose 
again  or  whether  the  life  received  by  faith  is  life  eternal, 
an  absolute  inamissible  grace. 

I  have  been  led  to  touch  on  this  question  to-day  from  the 
fact  that  the  Sunday  School  lesson  brings  it  before  us. 
Nothing  can  be  more  profitable,  either,  than  the  discussion 
of  this  very  question  if  the  Spirit  of  God  shall  give  us  His 
help — nothing  more  likely  to  produce  the  effect  we  desire, 
that  is  the  impairment  of  true  and  indelible  grace  to  unborn, 
unsanctified  souls.  The  Spirit  of  God  applies  truth  as  truth 
is  laid  home. 

Let  us  consider  then, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  307 

I.  What  is  meant  by  St.  Paul  when  he  says,  "Ye  are 
fallen  from  grace?" 

II.  The  proof  that  no  one  ever  did,  or  ever  can  fall  from 
saving  and  actual  grace. 

III.  The  natural  and  comforting  and  encouraging  conclu- 
sions which  such  a  fact  is  well  intended  to  impress. 

I.  What  is  meant  by  St.  Paul  when  he  says,  "Ye  are 
fallen  from  grace?" 

1.  It  is  not  meant  that  the  Galatians  had  fallen  from 
actual  grace  because,  in  that  case,  St.  Paul  would  not  have 
written  to  them  at  all;  still  less  would  he  have  addressed 
them  as  Brethren — rather  would  he  have  written  about  them, 
pointing  to  them  as  he  does  to  Hymenaeus,  Philetus  and 
Demas,  as  to  a  fearful  example.  Never  would  he  have  ad- 
dressed them  in  any  language  of  Christian  recognition  or 
hope,  for  in  other  places  he  teaches  us  that  it  is  impossible 
for  those,  once  enlightened,  if  they  fall  away,  ever  to  be 
renewed  again  unto  repentance,  and  that  for  those  who  sin 
wilfully  there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice  for  sins.  Im- 
possible would  have  been  written  across  the  record  of  the 
Galatians  had  they  fallen  from  actual  grace  and  that  would 
have  ended  it. 

But  more :  the  context  shows  that  St.  Paul  is  not  speaking 
to  individuals  in  this  Epistle,  but  to  the  church  at  large 
which  had  become  ritualistic,  and  was  now  teaching  that 
something  more  than  the  simple  Blood  and  Righteousness 
of  Christ  was  needed  in  order  to  justification  before  God. 
Certain  false  clerics  had  been  instructing  the  Galatians  that 
the  Sacraments,  as  circumcision,  were  assistants  to  justifica- 
tion, and  that  the  keeping  of  the  commandments,  the  law, 
was  a  help,  and  that  a  regard  for  certain  fasts  and  feasts 
and  other  festivals  of  the  Church  would  be  useful.  All 
these  things,  the  Apostle  signalizes  when  he  says,  "I  testi- 
fy to  every  man  circumcised  among  you  that  if  he  com- 
mences in  that  way  he  is  a  debtor  to  do  the  whole  law ;  and 
again:  "In  that  case,"  my  brother,  "you  are  under  a  curse, 
for  as  many  as  are  of  the  works  of  the  law,  and  you  are, 
are  under  the  curse ;  I  am  afraid  of  you — ye  observe  days 
and  months  and  times  and  years.     Christ  is  become  of  no 


308  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

effect  unto  you,  whosoever  of  you  are  justified  by  the  law, 
ye  are  fallen  from  grace." 

What  he  means  to  say,  and  it  is  clear  as  sunbeams  that  he 
means  to  say  it,  is  this,  "You  have  abandoned  your  plat- 
form. You  have  dropped  upon  a  lower  level.  You  have 
left  the  high  and  cloudless  and  out  and  out  position  of 
justification  by  the  Merits,  Blood  and  Righteousness  of 
Jesus  Christ  alone.  Say  what  you  please  of  the  beauty  and 
the  attractiveness  of  your  religion,  ye  are  fallen  from  grace. 

You  see  St.  Paul  feels  about  this  matter  precisely  as 
every  Evangelical,  Reformed  and  Puritan  preacher  has  felt 
about  it  from  St.  Paul's  day  to  this,  viz. :  that  the  question 
of  our  relation  to  God  is  just  the  one  question  of  Christ  only, 
or  of  Christ  and  something  else  along  with  Christ,  as  our 
answer  and  trust  in  the  presence  of  the  justice  of  God. 

Rome  says,  it  is  Christ  and  then,  through  Christ,  what  we 
ourselves  may  bring.  Paganism  says,  it  is  what  we  our- 
selves may  bring  without  any  Christ.  In  both  cases,  what 
we  ourselves  may  bring,  enters  in  as  a  factor.  "If  that  be 
so,"  says  St.  Paul,  "you  have  dropped  from  the  ground  of 
an  out  and  out  Gospel.  If  it  be  of  grace,  what  have  works 
to  do  with  it  anyhow?  If  it  be  of  works,  in  any  sense  what- 
ever, grace  is  no  more  grace." 

Now,  adds  the  Apostle,  "Stop  right  where  you  are,  or 
you  will  bring  down  the  curse  of  God  on  you."  Did  the 
Galatians  stop?  They  did  not.  They  received  with  bland 
and  smiling  incredulity  the  warnings  of  the  Apostle.  They 
kept  right  on,  for  ritualism  is  an  itching  gangrene  which 
increases  like  an  eczema  unto  more  ungodliness.  Galatia 
kept  right  on,  and  the  scourge  upon  the  Eastern  church 
proves  the  awful  solemnity  of  this  caveat  of  the  Apostle. 
The  Turk  is  a  witness.  God  hates  idolatry,  and  ritualism  is 
an  incipient  worship  of  idols — it  is  something  else  beside 
Christ — something  added  to  Christ.  That  is  the  trend  of 
to-day,  and  the  current  is  fast  setting  in  with  a  sweep  which 
is  all  but  resistless.  The  crucifix,  after  300  years  of  a  re- 
formed religion,  has  again  been  set  up  in  St.  Paul's.  The 
altar  is  again  erected.  The  mosaics  of  medievalism  are 
steadily  being  replaced.  The  mass  bids  fair  to  follow.  The 
churches  of  Germany  move  in  the  wake,  and,  unless  God 
interpose.  Protestantism  in  the  next  fifty  years  will  lose  all 
it  received  at  the  hands  of  Luther  and  Calvin. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  309 

Nor  is  the  ecclesiastical  side  of  this  clanger  the  sole  one. 
That  broader  spirit  of  free  thought  which  vaunts  a  human 
judgment  on  points  of  religion  in  preference  to  the  divine, 
and  which  finds  under  simpler  and  more  scriptural  Church 
systems  an  even  more  convenient  opportunity  for  corrupting 
the  truth — for  preaching  the  power  of  the  natural  will  and 
a  morality  baptized  as  Christian — the  "Ethics  of  Christian- 
ity*' as  it  is  plausibly  styled  and  which — opposing  them  on 
the  ground  of  "errancy,"  i.  e.,  of  erroneousness  in  the  rec- 
ord, would  criticise  out  of  the  Scriptures  the  Doctrines  of 
Grace,  and  finally — in  this  attempt,  in  striking  at  inspira- 
tion itself  would  boldly  lift  its  insolent  fist  in  the  face  of 
any  authority  voiced  in  an  external,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord !" 
gives,  in  the  theological  outlook,  quite  as  much  cause  for 
alarm.  "O  Foolish  Galatians,"  is  the  called  for  reprimand, 
"who  hath  bewitched  you  that  ye  should  not  obey  the  truth, 
before  whose  eyes  Jesus  Christ  hath  been  evidently  set  forth, 
crucified  among  you." 

At  the  point  of  divergence  whence  split  these  lines  of  de- 
parture from  the  simplicity  which  is  in  Christ,  the  doctrine 
of  the  final  preservation  of  the  saints  stands  firm  as  a  rock. 
Maintain  that  doctrine,  and  everything  is  saved.  Deny  it, 
or  loosen  your  confidence  in  it,  and  you  soon  slip  from  a 
shelving  Arminianism  into  a  bottomless  Agnosticism — from 
the  denial  of  Grace  to  the  denial  of  God. 

Nothing  therefore  can  be  more  important  than  to  re-insist 
upon  that  infallible  safety  of  the  believer  which,  irrespective 
of  anything  in  us  and  of  all  human  trammels,  and  rising 
above  all  human  thoughts,  is  built  directly  on  the  Word  of 
Jehovah  and  on  the  Oath  of  His  Covenant. 

II.  Let  us  then  see  from  the  Scripture  that  no  one 

EVER  DID,   WILL  OR  CAN   FALL  FROM   ACTUAL  GRACE. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  that  proposition  ? 

It  does  not  mean  that  seeming  grace  may  not  be  lost. 
"Whosoever  hath  not,  from  him  shall  be  taken  away  even 
that  which  he  seemeth  to  have."  Meteors  are  soon  spent, 
but  fixed  stars  are  permanent. 

Nor  does  it  mean  that  initial  and  preparatory  grace  may 
not  fail.  Plenty  of  blossoms  give  promise  which  do  not 
mature  into  fruit. 


310  THE  DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE. 

Nor  is  it  meant  that  true  grace  may  not  suffer  relapse — 
that  a  Christian  is  always  equal  to  his  best  experience.  On 
the  contrary,  the  leaves  of  profession  may  fade  as  in  the 
case  of  St.  Peter,  while  still  faith  fails  not.  What  we  main- 
tain is,  the  root  is  still  living. 

Nor  is  it  meant  that  joy  and  comfort  and  even  assurance, 
at  times,  may  not  diminish  or  vanish.  A  man  may  be  living, 
though  not  lively.  He  is  a  man  still,  though  like  David 
in  Psalm  51,  his  bones  through  sin  may  be  broken. 

Nor  is  it  meant  that  grace,  if  left  in  our  hands,  would  not 
be  lost.  It  would  be  lost,  for  we  have  no  fountain  of  life 
in  ourselves  and  are  not  our  own  keepers. 

Nor  once  again,  is  it  meant  that  we  have  no  need  to  per- 
severe, because  God  will  nreserve  us.  We  might  as  sensibly 
argue  that  we  have  not  to  breathe,  because  God  gives  us 
breath.  God  perseveres  in  us  through  our  own  perseverance 
— working  in  us  to  will  and  to  do. 

The  question  then  turns  upon  actual  grace,  not  seeming 
and  counterfeit  grace — not  some  supposable  grace  held  in 
reckless  and  careless  abandonment. 

The  question  has  to  do  with  a  genuine  grace  imparting  a 
new,  immortal  seed  of  life;  not  with  a  mere  change  for  the 
better,  but  with  a  new  birth — with  a  radical,  thorough  con- 
version. 

What  we  hold  and  what  we  defend  out  of  the  Scripture, 
is  that  there  never  was,  never  will  be,  and  never  could  be, 
such  a  thing  as  the  final  and  total  falling  away  of  a  man 
who  had  truly  repented  and  trusted  on  Christ.  That  in 
every  such  instance  a  work  has  been  done  which  shall  stand 
when  the  earth  and  its  works  are  burned  up,  a  work  as 
solid  as  God's  throne,  and  against  which  the  gates  of  hell 
itself  cannot  prevail. 

The  statment  of  the  point  is  almost  the  proof  of  it.  Such 
is  the  quick  and  the  self-evidencing  property  of  truth  that 
place  it  in  a  clear  and  open  light,  and  it  would  seem  that 
men  must  acknowledge  it. 

The  fact  does  not  stand,  however,  or  fall  upon  our  percep- 
tion. It  is  true  in  itself,  whether  we  may  perceive  it  or 
not.  Its  underlying  basis  is  revelation — its  ground  is  the 
Scripture  speaking  in  direct  assertion — in  its  statement  of 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  31  * 

the  scheme  of  grace — in  its  delineation  of  the  character  and 
attributes  of  God — in  its  description  of  the  new  nature — 
and  in  its  teaching  as  to  the  essence  of  faith.    And 

1.  The  assertions  of  Scripture,  both  general  and  special, 
in  both  Testaments.     And 

1st.  In  the  Old  Testament — the  promise  to  Abraham 
which  was  unconditional:  the  promise  to  David  which  was 
unconditional:  the  promise  to  God's  ancient  spiritual  people 
which  was  unconditional.  "Israel  shall  be  saved  with  an 
everlasting  salvation ;  I  am  the  Lord." 

Beside  these — promises  which  were  more  definite,  as  Isa. 
54:10,  ''For  the  mountains  shall  depart  and  the  hills  be 
removed ;  but  my  kindness  shall  not  depart  from  thee, 
neither  shall  the  covenant  of  my  peace  be  removed,  saith 
the  Lord  that  hath  mercy  on  thee. 

Isa.  59:21.  "This  is  my  covenant  with  them  saith  the 
Lord,  my  Spirit  that  is  upon  thee  shall  not  depart  out  of 
thy  mouth  henceforth  and  forever. 

Isa.  41  :9,  10.  "I  have  chosen  thee,  and  not  cast  thee 
away.  Fear  thou  not,  for  I  am  with  thee,  be  not  dismayed 
for  I  am  thy  God,  I  will  strengthen  thee ;  yea,  I  will  help 
thee;  yea,  I  will  uphold  thee  with  the  right  hand  of  my 
righteousness. 

Hos.  2:19.     "I  will  betroth  thee  to  me  forever. 

Isa.  55  :3.  "Incline  your  ear  and  come  unto  me,  hear  and 
your  soul  shall  live,  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  you,  even  the  sure  mercies  of  David. 

But  the  principle,  thus  lucidly  stated,  is  not  exclusive  to 
the  Old  Testament,  it  even  finds  a  more  emphatic  confirma- 
tion from  the  language  of  the  New. 

John  3  :36.  "He  that  believeth  on  the  son  hath  everlasting 
life. 

John  5 :24.  "Shall  not  come  into  condemnation,  but  is 
passed  from  death  unto  life. 

John  1 1  :26.  "Whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall 
never  die. 

John  14:19.     "Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also. 

Heb.  10:14.  "By  one  offering  He  hath  perfected  forever 
them  that  are  sanctified. 


312  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

i.  Cor.  i  :8.  "Who  shall  confirm  you  unto  the  end  that 
ye  may  be  blameless  in  the  day  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

I.  Pet.  i  15.  "Kept  by  the  power  of  God  through  faith 
unto  salvation. 

John  6:39.  "This  is  the  Father's  will,  that  of  all  which 
lie  hath  given  me  I  should  lose  nothing. 

John  17:12.  "None  of  them  is  lost,  but  the  son  of  perdi- 
tion is  lost,  that  the  Scripture  might  be  fulfilled. 

Rom.  8 :3c    "Whom'  He  justified,  them  He  also  glorified. 

Rom.  8 :39.  "Nor  height  nor  depth  nor  any  other  creature 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  which  is 
in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord. 

Phil.  1 :6.  "Being  confident  of  this  very  thing  that  He 
which  hath  begun  a  good  work  in  you  will  perform  it  until 
the  day  of  Jesus  Christ. 

1.  Peter  1 .23.  "Being  born  again  not  of  corruptible  seed 
but  of  ^corruptible. 

1.  John  3:9.     "His  seed  remaineth  in  him. 

Heb.  13:5.  "For  He  hath  said,  I  will  never  leave  thee  nor 
forsake  thee." 

John  10:27,  3°-  "My  sheep  hear  my  voice  and  I  know 
them,  and  they  follow  me,  and  I  give  unto  them  Eternal 
Life,  and  they  shall  never  perish,  neither  shall  any  man  pluck 
them  out  of  my  hand.  My  Father  which  gave  them  me  is 
greater  than  all,  and  no  man  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of 
my  Father's  hand.     I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

Our  Lord  here  begins  with  the  distinguishing  work  of  the 
Spirit  in  drawing  some,  and  not  others,  under  the  Gospel. 
"My  sheep  hear  my  voice.  The  goats  are  not  drawn,  but 
the  sheep  hear  and  follow.  "And  I  give  unto  them  eternal 
life,  i.  e.  life  which  runs  into  eternity,  and  they  shall  never 
perish,"  i.  e.  they  shall  not  fall  away  of  themselves  by  in- 
herent weakness,  "nor  shall  any  man  pluck  them  out  of 
my  hand.  Do  you  believe  my  Divinity?  Do  you  believe  I 
am  speaking  as  God  and  not  man  ?  I  appeal  in  such  case  to 
the  Covenant,  my  Father  which  gave  them  Me  is  greater 
than  all  and  none  shall  be  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  His  hand. 
I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

It  is  impossible,  my  brother,  for  the  human  tongue  to 
state  this  doctrine  if  it  be  not  stated  in  these  words  of 
Christ. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  313 

In  the  first  place  the  Life  referred  to  is  a  gift.  It  comes 
as  no  reward  of  merit  or  of  service.  It  comes  as  the  free 
will  and  motion  of  God.  It  comes  irrespective  of  badness 
or  goodness.    Why  then  should  it  ever  be  taken  away  ? 

In  the  second  place,  I  continue  to  give.  The  Greek  verb 
denotes  progress  in  action.  I  fund  it  out  as  from  a  spring. 
It  is  a  hidden  life  in  me,  in  God. 

Then  third.  77  is  eternal.  It  is  a  solecism  in  terms  to 
say  that  eternal  may  be  for  a  time. 

Then  fourth.  They  shall  not  perish.  Point  to  one  saint 
that  ever  did  oerish  and  ^ou  convict  the  Redeemer  of  men  of 
a  lie.  The  sweep  of  this  sentence  is  thus  seen  to  include  all 
contingencies.  They  shall  never  perish  !  What  not  if  severe- 
ly tempted?  They  shall  never  perish.  What  not  if  they 
backslide?  They  shall  never  perish.  But  if  they  continue 
in  backsliding  and  die  so?  Ah,  they  shall  never  do  that. 
They  never  shall  perish.  You  must  not  suppose  what  never 
can  occur. 

"None  shall  pluck  them;'  says  Jesus,  to  clinch  it,  "out  of 
my  hand." 

Yes,  but  they  may  slip  out,  thinks  one.  How  can  they 
slip  out  if  they  are  engraven,  and  Isa.  49:16  says,  "I  have 
graven  thee  upon  the  palms  of  my  hands."  Tattooed  with 
a  nail-print — written  through  and  through  the  palm  of 
Christ  is  the  name  of  every  believer.  Around  that  hand 
of  Christ  is  clasped  the  hand  of  the  Father.  A  double 
handed,  triple  handed  safety  then  has  each  one  of  us.  First, 
Christ's  hand,  then  God's  hand,  then  the  Holy  Ghost's 
hand  as  great  confirming  witness.  Immutability  is  thus  the 
everlasting  portion  of  the  saints. 

"If  Jesus  is  ours,  we  have  a  true  friend, 
Whose  goodness  endures  the  same  to  the  end. 
Our  comforts  may  vary,  our  frames  may  decline, 
We  cannot  miscarry,  our  aid  is  Divine. 
The  hills  may  depart,  and  the  mountains  remove, 
But  faithful  art  Thou,  O  Fountain  of  love! 
The  Father  has  graven  our  names  on  His  hands, 
Our  record  in  heaven  eternally  stands." 

Such  are  some  of  the  direct  and  positive  assertions  of  the 
Bible.     Scores,  hundreds,  thousands  more  might  be  added, 


314  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

several  of  which,  it  may  be,  suggest  themselves  to  you  as 
e\en  more  pertinent,  but  these  must  suffice.  There  are 
axioms  in  every  science,  in  algebra,  in  physics — so  in  theol- 
ogy. Always,  then,  let  us  abide  by  this  axiom,  One  positive 
statement  is  final. 

But  it  has  been  objected;  Other  Scriptures  seem  to  look 
otherwise. 

We  may  reply.  What  seems  is  nothing,  our  final  authority 
is  the  plain  direct  assertion.  It  is  asserted  that  the  saint  can- 
not fall  away ;  it  is  never  asserted  that  he  can. 

Again,  we  may  reply.  The  subjunctive  can  never  annul 
the  indicative  mode.  For  example,  God  says  in  Ps.  125, 
"They  that  trust  in  the  Lord  shall  be  as  Mt.  Zion,  which 
cannot  be  moved,  but  abideth  forever."  In  Ps.  11:3  we 
read,  "If  the  foundations  be  removed,  what  can  the  right- 
eous do?"  In  one  place  it  says  the  foundations  cannot  be 
removed,  in  another  place  "if."  Now  will  any  man  be  so 
absurd  as  to  say  that  the  "if"  in  the  second  place  shakes 
the  foundations? 

An  "if"  is  nothing  but  an  "if" — a  mere  supposition  em- 
ployed as  a  caution  or  for  some  other  wise  purpose ;  but  a 
mere  supposition  can  never  affect  a  certain  and  positive 
fact. 

The  Scripture  savs :  "If  any  man  destroy  the  temple  of 
God."  "Lest  I  should  be  a  castaway."  "If  they  fall,  it  is 
impossible,"  etc.  What  are  these  but  wise  and  reasonable 
barriers  set  along  the  way — beacons  against  presumption — 
helps,  by  the  alarm  they  sound,  to  a  proper  avoidance  of 
those  things  which  if  persisted  in  would  ruin,  but  which,  by 
the  very  caution,  are  avoided,  and  the  fact  predicted  thus  se- 
cured. 

I  do  not  wish  my  child  to  trifle  with  the  fire.  I  put  a  wire 
screen  up  which  secures  the  child.  But  I  do  not  wish  it  to 
be  a  security  of  mere  mechanical  restraint,  and  so  I  say,  "My 
child  do  not  go  near  the  fire.  People  have  been  terribly 
burned  by  carelessness.  If  you  should  go  too  near  yon 
would  be  burned."  The  child  believes  and  keeps  far  away 
from  the  fire.  He  does  not  even  try  to  test  the  screen ;  he 
does  not  risk  even  a  scorch.    Thus  is  he  secured,  not  only 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  3*5 

by  my  action,  but  by  his  own  humility  and  confidence  and 
careful  walk  wrought  in  him  through  my  word. 

I  have  no  time  for  other  splendid  overwhelming  argu- 
ments, as  from  Divine  Election  which  must  fall  if  it  be  not 
eternal.  Redemption  which  does  not  redeem  if  those  pur- 
chased are  lost.  Effectual  Calling,  which  is  not  effectual,  if 
the  Holy  Ghost  fails  in  His  work. 

Arguments  as  well  from  the  omnipotence  and  the  immu- 
tability of  God — that  He  is  able  to  fulfil  what  He  has  prom- 
ised, and  is  not  like  infamous,  dishonorable  men,  a  promise 
breaker. 

Arguments  growing  out  of  the  essential  character  of  the 
divine  life  infused  which  is  immortal,  a  well  of  water  spring- 
ing up  to  everlasting  life,  and  which  can  never  be  cut  off 
from  its  spring — which  has  within  it  also  an  instinct  like  the 
instinct  of  immortality  which  is  in  every  soul. 

My  brother,  ray  sister,  have  you  that  instinct? — a  serious 
question  indeed.  Does  the  New  Nature  in  you,  of  itself, 
presage  its  everlasting  blessedness?  If  not,  are  you  sure 
that  you  have  the  new  nature?  I  am  not  sure  for  you,  and 
sure  I  cannot  be,  for 

Rivers  to  the  ocean  run, 

Nor  stay  in  all  their  course, 
Fire  ascending  seeks  the  sun, 

Both  speed  them  to  their  source, 
So  the  soul  that's  born  of  God 

Pants  to  see  His  glorious  face, 
Upward  flies  to  His  abode  to  rest  in  His  embrace." 

If  you  are  born  again  you  cannot  be  tm-born,  and,  if  you 
are  born,  you  have  the  instinct,  the  consciousness. 

Arguments  growing  out  of  the  nature  of  faith  which  rests 
on  a  promise — what  promise  ?  "Thou  shalt  be  saved ;  not 
half-way  saved,  not  put  in  a  hopeful  position,  but  honestly, 
out  and  out  saved,  so  as  to  see  heaven. 

Now  faith,  in  the  essence,  fixes  on  that.  If  I  do  not 
believe  I  shall  be  saved,  I  have  no  saving  belief. 

What  do  I  believe,  what  do  I  grasp  in  the  Gospel  ?  Noth- 
ing, if  I  do  not  grasp  Heaven — getting  out  of  the  ship- 


316  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

wreck — coming  off  conqueror.  That  certainly  is  what  is 
promised,  and  it  is  quite  as  certain  that  any  man  who  stops 
short  of  that  and  believes  for  temporary  help,  or  help  on 
good  behavior;  or  a  lift  toward,  but  not  an  actual  positive 
deliverance,  does  not  believe  the  promise  at  all.  His  faith 
is  a  make-believe  faith — it  stops  short  of  Canaan  and  dies 
in  the  wilderness. 

Take  Abraham.  Suppose  he  had  not  believed  for  Canaan 
but  only  for  three  or  four  days  of  the  journey,  or  only  for 
help  as  he  used  his  own  wits, — pioneered  his  own  way  and 
kept  himself  in  the  right  path,  who  cannot  see  that  such  a 
faith  would  both  have  ruined  Abraham  and  mocked  at 
God? 

Moses  at  Meribah  broke  down  because  he  doubted  for  a 
moment  whether  he  should  after  all  reach  Canaan.  He 
broke  down  and  he  did  not  reach  Canaan — his  unbelief  broke 
him  down. 

Israel  too,  when  they  came  out  of  Egypt  had  a  certain 
faith — an  Exodus  faith,  a  temporary  faith,  but  not  a 
Canaan  faith.  At  Kadesh  Barnea  they  all,  but  Joshua  and 
Caleb,  snowed  that  they  had  no  faith,  and  died  in  the  desert. 

If  I  do  not  believe  God's  promise  I  do  not  believe  at  all, 
and  God's  promise  is  not,  "I  will  save  you  on  your  good  be- 
havior but  I  will  save  you  anyhow.  I  will  save  you  from 
yourself  and  see  you  through." 

"What  I  believe,"  says  old  Bell  in  the  "Covenants,"  is 
that  I  shall  be  saved  by  Jesus  Christ — not  saved  if  I  believe, 
but  He  promises  to  save,  and  I,  a  naked  sinner,  fling  myself 
on  that  and  take  it. 

And  that  taking  it,  is  the  very  essence  of  faith,  for,  says 
Patrick  Hamilton,  the  first  Scotch  martyr  after  the  Reform, 
"A  man  cannot  have  faith  without  assurance  in  it,  for  faith  is 
a  sureness."  The  very  fact  of  faith  then,  essential  faith, 
makes  falling  from  grace  an  absurdity ;  wholly  impossible. 
God  Himself  must  fall  from  grace,  if,  to  the  life  which  He 
gives  without  a  condition,  He  denies  His  promise,  con- 
tradicts His  own  immutability,  lets  fall  His  purpose  and 
His  oath,  quenches  His  own  eternal  spirit,  annihilates  His 
own  Divine  nature  and  dishonors  the  confidence  put  by  a 
lost  and  helpless  creature  in  Him.  ... 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  317 

III.  What  now  are  the  comforts  growing  out  of  the  Doc- 
trine so  confirmed. 

One  thing:  It  shows  the  self-consistency  and  the  immu- 
tability of  God ;  that  we  can  build  on  Him,  that  He  does 
not  shift  in  purpose  and  in  promise  as  do  men. 

Another  thing:  It  shows  the  simple  and  the  changeless 
basis  of  the  Christian  faith,  i.  e.,  God's  naked  word,  noth- 
ing with  it,  nothing  short  of  it,  nothing  but  it.  He  says 
He  will  save  me  and  my  children,  and  I  stick  there.  "As 
for  me  this  is  my  Covenant  with  them  saith  the  Lord.  My 
Soirit  that  is  upon  thee  and  my  words  which  I  have  put 
in  thy  mouth  shall  not  depart  out  of  thy  mouth,  nor  out  of 
the  mouth  of  thy  seed,  nor  out  of  the  mouth  of  thy  seed's 
seed,  saith  the  Lord  from  henceforth  and  forever." 

We  can  trust  that  God  will  even  bring  our  children  back 
if  they  deDart  from  this  faith.    His  Covenant  saves  them. 

Finalh-  the  chief  encouragement  for  any  lost  sinner  to 
trust  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  that  He  will  do  for  us 
what  we  cannot  do  ourselves — see  us  through  and  finally 
save  us. 

Nay,  that  he  saves  us  already,  for  the  Gospel  is  not  like 
the  pope's  gift  of  England  to  Philip  II.,  if  he  could  get  it; 
but  the  Gospel  is,  "It  is  yours,  the  moment  you  trust." 

"The  moment  a  sinner  believes, 

And  trusts  on  His  crucified  God, 
Salvation  at  once  he  receives. 

Redemption  in  full  through  Christ's  Blood." 

I  preach  to  you  feelingly — my  brother  on  the  point  of 
trusting  Christ,  but  anxious,  troubled,  fearful  lest  you  may 
not  "hold  out."  I  myself  have  felt  that  same  anxiety,  dis- 
tress and  fear.  When  under  conviction  of  sin,  I  prayed  for 
weeks,  "Lord,  do  not  let  me  fall  back."  One  day,  while 
so  praying  the  promise  shot  through  my  soul,  "I  will  never 
leave  thee  nor  forsake  thee!"  And  from  that  hour  to  this 
I  have  never  repeated  that  prayer.  I  left  my  future  and  my 
destiny  in  Christ's  hands,  and  for  nearly  fifty  years  He 
has  kept  me.  My  life  for  yours,  dear  friend,  if  you  will 
trust  Him  out  and  out  just  now,  He  will  keep  you.   Do  not 


318  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

any  longer  think  of  keeping  yourself.  Do  not  mix  it  and 
think  of  Christ's  keeping  and  your  own  keeping,  but  give 
all  up  and  look  to  Christ  alone  for  eternity.  That  is  assur- 
ance, that  is  "the  faith  of  God's  elect."  Substantial?  yes, 
the  "substance  of  things  hoped  for."  Proof?  yes,  the  evi- 
dence of  things  unseen.  God's  gift  which  can  never  break 
down. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  319 


WILL  BELIEVERS  COME  INTO  THE  JUDGMENT? 

2  Cor.  v:io. 

"For  we  must  all  appear  before  the  Judgment  Seat  of  Christ; 
that  every  one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his  body,  according 
to  that  he  hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad." 

There  is  the  true  story  of  a  young  man  who  was  very 
zealous  for  the  honor  of  God  upon  earth  and  also  for  the 
salvation  of  souls.  But,  after  a  time,  the  interests  of  a 
young  family  and  his  success  in  the  world  as  a  man  of 
business  gradually  drew  away  his  attention  to  the  cares 
of  this  life, — and,  often,  when  those  with  whom  he  usually 
met  in  Christ's  fellowship  were  assembled  together  for 
worship,  he  was  found  at  home  with  his  ledger,  attending 
to  his  accounts  or  arranging  what  must  be  done  on  the 
morrow.  This  went  on  for  several  years,  not  however, 
without  many  secret  warnings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  many 
open  admonitions  from  his  brethren, — until,  when  he  was 
nearly  forty  years  of  age  he  was  seized  with  a  consump- 
tion. The  time  came  when  he  was  entirely  laid  aside  and 
then  he  saw  his  sin  and  folly.  "Oh,"  he  said,  "how  unwise 
and  wicked  I  have  been.  I  have  neglected  God  and  have 
preferred  what  I  thought  was  my  duty  to  my  family  to 
my  duty  to  God — and  to  the  society  and  communion  of 
His  people, — and,  although  my  conduct  before  men  has 
been  blameless,  yet  the  last  twelve  years  of  my  life  are  quite 
lost.  It  would  have  been  better  for  me  had  I  never  lived  them 
— for  I  have  used  them  for  myself  and  not  for  the  Lord. 
I  have  been  careful  for  my  own  things  and  not  for  the  things 
of  Jesus  Christ.  I  shall  blush  when  I  see  His  face.  I  shall 
hold  down  my  head  as  I  go  into  His  presence  for  I  have 
deprived  Him  of  the  joy  He  would  have  had  in  saying  to 
me,  'Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant.'  I  know  He 
has  forgiven  me,  but.  Oh,  what  a  loser  I  have  been  in  my 
own  soul,  and  I  shall  be  a  greater  loser  in  that  day  of 
glory  when  the  Lord  returns.  I  shall  see  others  coming 
forward  in  that  happy  day  to  take  their  crowns  of  reward, 


320  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

and  their  positions  in  the  Kingdom  for  faithful  service  done 
to  Him  on  earth ;  but  I  shall  have  neither  crown  nor  posi- 
tion, for  I  have  allowed  the  present  world  to  rob  me  of  them. 
I  am  thankful  that  I  am  saved  through  His  death  and  I 
know  I  shall  be  one  of  that  favored  company  which  will 
surround  His  throne  and  join  in  singing,  'Thou  art  worthy 
to  take  the  book  and  open  the  seals  thereof,  for  Thou  wast 
slain  and  hast  redeemed  us  to  God  through  Thy  blood  out  of 
every  kindred  and  tongue  and  people  and  nation.' — I  know 
this,  but  where  will  be  my  honors  in  that  day  when  the  saints 
shall  begin  to  reign  as  kings  and  priests?  I  shall  have  no 
honors.  I  shall  have  a  starless  crown — yes  I  have  lost 
my   crown !" 

This  narrative  seems  to  me  a  fitting  prelude  to  the 
discussion  of  the  question  of  a  future  judgment  which 
is  suggested  by  the  Scripture  Lessons  to  which  we  have 
listened. 

It  has  been  maintained  by  some,  that  the  scene  in  the 
XXV  of  St.  Matthew,  is  strictly  and  only  a  judgment  of 
the  living  nations.  It  is  clearly  this ;  but  the  question  is 
whether  this  prophetic  picture  of  our  Lord  is  not  also  a 
composite  photograph,  comprehending  in  a  single  view 
the  principles,  the  stages  and  the  subjects  of  Divine  judg- 
ment. 

Recurring  to  that  conception  of  the  future  which  has 
been  styled  telescopic,  we  may  arrange  the  succession  of 
events  in  the  tremendously  solemn  transaction  as  follows : 

Judgment  begins  with  the  Church  when  the  Master  of 
the  house  returns  into  the  clouds  of  heaven.  Instantly  there 
is  a  separation  of  the  wheat  from  the  tares — of  the  sheep 
from  the  goats — of  the  wise  from  foolish  virgins — of  the 
Bride  from  the  harlot.  By  resurrection  and  translation 
all  believers  dead  and  living  are  caught  up  in  one  com- 
pany into  the  skies.  By  non-resurrection  and  by  devas- 
tating judgments,  the  apostate  living  and  the  apostate  dead 
are  included  in  the  other  company.  There  is  then  a  judg- 
ment of  the  Church  at  once  when  Christ  comes  for  His 
Saints.  This  is  followed  by  a  judgment  of  the  living  nations 
when  Christ  comes  with  His  Saints  at  the  beginning  of 
the   Millennium — and  finally   there   is   a   judgment  of  the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  321 

wicked  dead  who  were  not  in  the  First  Resurrection — after 
the  thousand  years  are  finished. 

There  are  thus  three  separate  judgments — or  stages  of 
judgment.  The  judgment  of  the  Church  caught  up  into  the 
clouds  at  Christ's  coming.  The  judgment  of  the  living 
Nations  at  His  Appearing  and  the  commencement  of  His 
Kingdom.  The  judgment  of  the  wicked  dead  and  of  these 
only  at  the  winding  up  and  close  of  the  thousand  years 
reign  when  He  shall  deliver  the  Kingdom  up  to  His  Father. 

The  First  Judgment  is  in  heaven  before  the  Tribunal,  or 
as  our  text  calls  it  the  Bema  of  Christ.  The  second  judg- 
ment is  on  earth  before  the  throne  of  His  glory.  The  third 
judgment  is  in  space  when  earth  and  heaven  have  fled 
away,  before  the  Great  White  Throne. 

The  same  principles  run  through  all  these  judgments.  In 
all  three  it  is  equally  a  question  of  being  justified  by  grace. 
In  all  three  it  is  a  question  of  proper  fruits  as  evidences  ot 
this  justification.  In  all  three  the  award  or  the  penalty  is 
final  and  everlasting. 

But  in  other  respects  the  three  judgments  are  diverse 
from  each  other  and  those  who  come  into  one  do  not  come 
into  the  other.  Take,  then,  if  you  please,  these  judgments 
in  order,  and 

I.  The  judgment  of  the  Church.  For  we  must  all 
appear  before  the  Bema  or  Tribunal  of  Christ."  What 
does  that  mean? 

Whatever  it  means,  it  can  mean  nothing  which  involves 
the  doom  of  the  believer,  for, 

1st.  The  Believer,  if  fallen  asleep,  will  be  raised  up  in 
Horv,  or,  if  alive  and  remaining  when  the  Lord  comes,  will 
be  changed  into  glory — That  glory  itself  will  be  the  stamp 
of  our  destiny.  Does  any  one  imagine  that,  after  that,  we 
can  be  shorn  of  that  clory? — that  "glorv  everlasting"  will 
ever  be  dimmed,  or  interrupted  or  made  less  than  ever- 
lasting? The  very  fact  that  we  are  raised  in  glory  will  be 
Hire  the  jeweler's  trade  mark  stamped  on  silver  which 
attests  its  genuineness  wherever  it  may  be  and  whatever 
use  it  may  after  be  put  to. 

Besides :  When  we  are  raised  up  it  will  be  in  the  likenes? 
of  Christ — We   shall   be  like  Him   for  we  shall   see  Him 


322  THE   DOCTRINES    OF    GRACE. 

as  He  is.  Shall  we  ever  lose  that  likeness  ?  Does  not  its 
possession  preclude  our  ever  standing  before  any  bar  to 
be  judged  as  to  where  we  belong — as  to  what  we  are? 
Imagine  Christ  standing  before  a  bar  to  have  it  decided 
whether  He  is  to  go  to  heaven  or  hell.  But  "as  He  is  so 
are  we,"  even  in  this  world,  how  much  more  in  the  other? 
Certainly  this  precludes  our  ever  coming  into  judgment — 
either  into  that  judgment  described  in  Matt.  25,  i.  e.,  of  liv- 
ing nations  which  are  on  the  earth,  for  we  are  no  longer  on 
the  earth, — or  into  that  judgment  of  the  wicked  dead  at  the 
end  of  the  thousand  years,  for  what  should  we  be  doing 
again  among  the  dead,  especially  the  wicked  dead,  and  what 
can  be  more  monstrous  than  the  notion  that  the  spotless 
robes  and  crowns  of  glory  which  the  saints  have  worn  a 
thousand  years  shall  be  snatched  away  from  them  and  that 
these  joint  heirs  of  Christ  shall  be  dragged  down  from  the 
thrones  on  which  they  have  been  reigning  with  Him  and 
mingled  in  one  horrid  and  promiscous  company  with  those 
reserved  unto  the  judgment  of  damnation. 

But  more :  Besides  our  being  raised  up  in  glory — and 
in  the  likeness  of  Christ  and  as  sharers  in  the  reign  of 
Christ  we  have. 

2d.  The  assurance  of  our  eternal  justification  now, 
in  this  present  timet — which  assurance  can  never  be  in- 
validated or  taken  from  us.  "He  that  believeth  on  the  Son 
hath  everlasting  life" — "Hath,"  not  hopeth  for  it — "Hath," 
not  waits  to  have  it  at  the  judgment — Hath  everlasting  life 
— i.  e.,  a  life  which  lasts  forever — hath  it  now. 

"By  Him  all  that  believe  are  justified  from  all  things."  Jus- 
tification is  a  forensic  word — it  means  that  we  have  already 
been  before  the  bar  and  there  pronounced  acquitted  in 
respect  to  all  things — "all  things"  takes  in  the  whole  future 
— Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you — He  that  heareth  my  word 
and  believeth  on  Him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life 
and  shall  not  come  into  judgment ;  but  is  passed  from  death 
unto  life.  "This  is  the  promise  which  He  hath  promised 
us,  even  eternal  life" — "Eternal  life,  which  God,  who  cannot 
lie,  promised  before  the  world  began."    But 

3d.  We  are  "in  heavenly  places"  now — shall  we  ever  be 
cast  out  of  them  ?  Shall  we  be  worse  off  after  being  raised 
and  changed  as  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye — this  corruptible 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  323 

having  put  on  incorruption  and  this  mortal  immortality? 
But 

4.  The  vast  majority  of  those  who  shall  be  caught  up  in 
the  First  Resurrection  are  in  heaven  now.  If  Paul  has  been 
with  Christ  for  hundreds  of  years,  how  absurd  to  imagine 
it  has  yet  to  be  decided  whether  he  is  fit  to  be  there.     But, 

5.  The  Resurrection  of  Believers  is  that  of  the  "just" — 
of  those  who  have  already  been  judged  and  acquitted — 
judged  in  the  Person  of  Christ  who  has  stood  for  them — who 
has  met  their  every  liability — who  has  brought  in  for  them 
everlasting  righteousness — Who  is  "the  Lord  our  Righteous- 
ness." 

On  what  ground  then,  is  the  believer,  hereafter,  at  any 
Tribunal, — I  mean  for  his  destiny — to  be  judged?  Not 
on  the  ground  of  his  sins  for  they  have  been  blotted  out. 
Not  on  the  ground  of  his  works  for  he  has  renounced  them. 
The  Blood  of  Christ  is  the  ground  he  stands  on — the  Obedi- 
ence of  Christ — His  merit  is  his  only  plea.  Is  it  not  evi- 
dent then,  that  any  judgment  of  him  for  eternal  destiny 
must  be  a  judgment  of  Christ  Himself  who  represents 
him  ? — that  every  accusation  laid  to  the  charge  of  God's 
elect  is.  in  fact,  an  accusation  laid  against  the  very  Judge 
who  sits  upon  the  throne? 

Justice  satisfied  already — Pardon  granted  already — 
Heaven  purchased  and  promised  already — how  certain  be- 
yond all  other  either  natural  or  moral  certainties  beside, 
stands  luminous  the  fact  that  "there  is  therefore  nozv  no 
condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus."     But 

6.  And  further — the  church,  throughout  the  Scriptures  is 
represented  as  a  Bride.  This  is  the  figure  which  meets  us  at 
every  turn  of  the  two  Testaments  from  Genesis  to  Revela- 
tion. It  is  the  one  great  type  of  Scripture.  This  is  the 
meaning  of  Eve  in  Eden  taken  from  Adam's  side  and  pre- 
sented to  her  husband.  It  is  the  meaning  of  Asenath 
married  to  Joseph  in  the  time  of  his  rejection  by  his  breth- 
ren.    It  is  the  meaning  of  the  Song  of  Solomon. 

The  coming  of  the  Lord  Jesus  is  the  Coming  of  a 
Lover  for  a  loved  one — of  a  Bridegroom  for  a  Bride — 
Surely  a  joyous  event  and  one  not  to  be  marred  by  the  put- 
ting of  that  loved  one,  that  Bride,  into  a  prisoner's  dock  to 
be  tried  for  her  life  on  Criminal  Charges.    It  is  not  a  ques- 


324  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

tion  of  examining  her  Marriage  Certificate,  while  she  stands 
trembling  like  a  culprit  to  see  whether  she  is  to  be  cast  off 
forever,  or  not. 

The  Coming  of  the  Lord  Jesus  is  everywhere  represented 
as  a  Glad  Event — an  event  to  be  longed  for — to  be  hastened 
by  our  prayers — to  be  anticipated  with  supremest  joy.  We 
are  to  comfort  one  another  with  the  assurance  that  our 
Lord  will  quickly  come' — We  are  to  love  His  appearing. 
"I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you,"  He  says,  "And  if  I  go 
and  prepare  a  place  for  you,  I  will  come  again  and  receive 
you  unto  myself,  that  where  I  am  there  ye  may  be  also."  Can 
happiness  itself  crave  more  ?  "And  to  you  who  are  troubled" 
— not  more  trouble — but  "rest  with  us,"  says  St.  Paul,  "when 
the  Lord  Jesus  shall  be  revealed  from  heaven  with  His 
mighty  angels."     And 

7.  The  very  character  and  being  of  God  are  at  stake  in 
this  question  of  a  Judgment  for  the  destiny  of  the  believer. 
If  the  believer  is  not  saved,  he  loses  his  soul,  but  God  loses 
His  honor.    But 

8,  and  to  conclude  the  argument,  the  word  ftijua,  trans- 
lated judgment  seat — a  very  different  word  from  the  word 
"throne,"  seems  to  shed  some  light  upon  the  scene  depicted 
in  our  text.  "For  we  shall  all  appear  before  the  Bema, 
the  Tribunal  of  Christ,  that  every  one  may  receive  the 
things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that  he  hath  done, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad." 

There  will  therefore  be  a  judgment  of  the  Church,  but 
not  for  destiny — but  for  adjustment.  Not  for  Heaven  and 
Hell,  but  for  Rczvard  or  Loss  according  to  our  works,  and 
for  position — higher  or  lower,  in  the  Kingdom. 

The  First  Resurrection,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  itself  the  award 
of  life,  and  they  who  now  stand  in  their  risen  and  immortal 
bodies  have  passed  beyond  all  possible  inquisition  concern- 
ing the  inheritance  of  life  eternal.  But  into  a  strict  and 
solemn  investigation  of  their  zvorks  they  do  now,  undoubt- 
edly come — for,  at  length,  that  Scripture  is  fulfilled :  Every 
man's  work  shall  be  manifest,  for  the  day  shall  declare  it. 
because  it  shall  be  revealed  by  fire ;  and  the  fire  shall  try 
every  man's  work  of  what  sort  it  is."  Many — it  is  to  be 
feared,  will  stand  before  the  Lord  in  that  day,  who  are 
saved  but  unrewarded,  redeemed  but  not  "recompensed  at 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  325 

the  resurrection  of  the  just," — their  works  burned  up  as 
worthless  but  "themselves  saved  but  so  as  by  fire."  But 
to  such  as  have  borne  the  cross  and  endured  hardness  this 
is  the  time  of  reward :  "Behold  I  come  quickly  and  thy 
reward  is  with  Me,  to  give  to  every  man  according  as  his 
work  shall  be."  And  this  recompense  will  consist  not  only 
in  vague  and  transcendental  joys  of  song-  and  rapture  and 
repose,  but  in  actual,  tangible  and  splendid  emoluments  and 
honors.  That  repeated  strain  in  the  parable  of  the  talents, 
"Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant,  thou  hast  been 
faithful  over  a  few  things,  /  zvill  make  thee  ruler  over 
many  things" — and  in  that  other  parable  of  the  Pounds. 
"Have  thou  authority  over  10  cities" — "Be  thou  over  5  cities" 
would  seem  to  indicate  and  not  obscurely  the  nature  of  the 
Saint's  inheritance.  Reigning  with  Christ  over  the  earth, 
throughout  the  millennium,  their  rank  in  His  manifested 
kingdom,  will  be  according  to  their  faithfulness  now  during 
the  time  of  His  absence.  In  the  judgment  of  the  nations 
which  follows  and  is  described  in  Matt,  xxv,  they  will  be 
associated  with  their  Lord.  "Do  ye  not  know  that  the  saints 
shall  judge  the  world?" — and,  in  the  degree  of  their  nearness 
to  Him  in  honor  and  authority  will  consist  the  greatness  of 
their  reward. 

Twenty  years  ago,  I  saw  in  the  Palace  of  Versailles  that 
immortal  painting  by  David,  "Napoleon  distributing  the 
eagles  to  his  victorious  army."  Napoleon  has  risen  from 
his  throne  in  all  the  splendor  of  imperial  vestments.  In  his 
left  hand  he  grasps  a  sheaf  of  standards  tipped  with  golden 
eagles  of  graduated  sizes ;  with  his  right,  he  presents  them, 
one  by  one,  to  the  successful  generals  whose  fidelity  he 
would  reward.  How  they  rush  forward  eagerly — both 
arms  outstretched.  Each  standard  carries  with  it  a  title — 
"Duke  of  Marengo" — "Duke  of  Mantua" — of  "Wagram" — 
"Count  of  Jena" — "Count  of  Austerlitz" — the  battlefields 
where  each  has  specially  distinguished  himself.  Nothing 
could  be  more  animated — more  replete  with  enthusiasim, 
than  the  scene.  After  20  years  it  is  as  vivid  to  me  in  its 
figures  and  its  coloring  as  when  I  looked  upon  it  spellbond, 
at  the  first.  Of  course  it  was  not  a  question  of  being  put 
out  of  Napoleon's  army.  It  was  a  question  of  promotion, 
or  rank,  of  honor ;  of  higher  or  lower,  of  greater  or  less. 


326  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

We  can  well  understand  that  in  the  judgment  of  which 
we  now  speak,  the  Lord  will  not  ask;  "Are  you  a  believer?" 
for  the  glorious  throng  before  Him  will  be  composed  of 
none  but  such  as  have  been  saved  for  time  and  eternity. 
But  the  question  will  be,  "What  have  you  done  for  Me?" 
For,  how  many  Christians  are  there  who  overlook  the  obli- 
gation to  work — to  spend  themselves — to  sacrifice  for  Jesus 
Christ, — who  seem  willing  to  make  of  Him  a  mere  con- 
venience? Who  live  as  if  they  had  no  other  care  than  to 
get  their  souls  saved  and  make  sure  of  going  to  heaven 
when  they  die.  Who  do  not  appear  to  know  that  when 
they  were  saved  by  grace,  they  were  "created  unto  good 
works  which  God  hath  before  ordained  that  we  should  walk 
in   them." 

Salvation  in  its  everlasting  fulness  is,  no  doubt,  the  gift 
of  God.  He  who  believes  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  on 
the  foundation — but  how  does  he  build  upon  that  founda- 
tion? Is  it  gold,  silver,  precious  stones,  or  is  it  ivood,  hay, 
stubble?  "The  day  shall  declare  it,  for  the  fire  shall  try 
every  man's  work  of  what  sort  it  is." 

Not  only  the  quantity  of  our  works  but  their  quality  will 
then  be  sifted.  For  example,  if  a  believer  works  merely 
because  he  loves  to  work,  or  because  he  thinks  he  ought 
to  work ;  or  if  he  labors  at  something  he  has  set  himself  to 
do — then,  even  though  he  call  upon  the  Lord  to  help  him, 
yet  his  works  will  fail — they  will  not  stand  the  test — they 
will  be  counted  as  wood,  hay  or  stubble — because  they 
proceed  from  motives  which  originate  in  self.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  a  believer  is  constrained  by  the  love  of  God — 
if  his  work  is  in  accordance  with  God's  will  and  in  obedi- 
ence to  His  Word  it  will  be  successful.  And  inasmuch  as 
it  is  done  not  by  him  but  by  the  Lord  Himself,  though  by 
his  instrumentality,  it  will  be  reckoned  as  gold,  silver,  preci- 
ous stones  and  rewarded  accordingly.  The  Lord's  work 
must  be  done  by  the  Lord  Himself — not  by  us  with  His 
help,  but  by  Him  through  us.  A  distinction  which  implies 
a  vast  difference. 

The  word  "Bema"  or  "Judge's  Stand"  helps  us  to  re- 
produce the  thought  of  the  Apostle.  The  words  of  our 
text  were  written  to  the  Corinthians  who  were  familiar 
with  the  Isthmian  games  celebrated  once  in  three  years  near 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE.  327 

their  city.  It  was  open  to  them,  at  that  time,  and  it  was 
their  pride  and  joy  to  run  together  in  a  race  that  they 
might  obtain  a  laurel  crown.  When  the  race  was  concluded 
the  competitors  had  to  appear  before  the  chair  of  the 
president  of  the  games  in  order  to  receive  the  prize.  In 
like  manner  they  who  run  the  Christian  race  must  appear 
before  the  Bema  or  Judgment  seat  of  Christ  to  receive 
their  crown  of  reward. 

The  business  which  we  have  before  us,  therefore,  is  the 
running  of  the  Christian  race.  "All  run"  says  the  Apostle, 
"but  one  receiveth  the  prize.  So  run  that  ye  may  obtain. 
And  every  man  that  striveth  for  the  mastery  is  temperate 
in  all  things.  Now  they  do  it  to  obtain  a  corruptible  crown 
but  we  an  incorruptible.  I  therefore  so  run  not  as  uncer- 
tainly— but  I  keep  under  my  body  and  bring  it  into  sub- 
jection. I  keep  it  in  training  trim — lest  by  any  means 
when  I  have  preached  to  others  I  myself  should 
be  a SoHiuoi—  disapproved  of — left  out  as  unworthy  from  the 
honor  list. 

To  put  the  distinction  between  the  judgment  of  the  Church 
and  the  after  judgments  of  the  world  in  even  clearer  light, 
if  possible,  let  me  remind  you  that  two  characters  may  be 
united  in  the  same  person.  The  judge  may  also  be  a  father. 
We  can  imagine  the  case  of  such  a  judge  who,  having  been 
absent  on  official  business,  returns  to  his  home.  On  his 
return,  nothing  would  be  more  natural  than  that  he  should 
inquire  into  the  affairs  of  his  household  and  the  conduct 
of  his  children  during  his  absence.  But  this  investigation 
would  be  very  differently  conducted,  and  his  conclusion 
would  be  guided  by  very  different  principles  from  the  trials 
and  decisions  of  the  Court  over  which,  to-morrow,  he  will 
preside.  A  father's  love  might  graciously  recognize  the 
love  of  a  child  in  an  act  in  itself  insignificant, — and  he 
might  acknowledge  it  and  reward  it  in  terms  which  seemed 
altogether  disproportioned.  In  short,  what  would  be  most 
apparent  throughout  would  be  a  father's  grace  and  love, 
whose  commendation  would  very  often  take  his  faithful 
children  by  surprise,  and  whose  censure  would  melt  the 
heart  of  the  unfaithful  by  the  impression  of  the  love  which 
uttered  it.  All  this  would  be  changed  when  on  the  morrow 
he  took  his  sent,  in  his  official  robes,  upon  the  bench  to 


328  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

deal  without  fear  or  favor  with  the  offenders  who  were 
placed  at  the  bar  in  strict  accordance  with  the  laws  of  the 
land.  And  those  who  had  witnessed  his  gracious  tenderness 
in  the  one  case  might  have  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  same 
man  in  the  other — when  the  sternness  of  the  judge  made 
him  a  terror  to  all  evil  doers. 

A  father  looking  into  and  rewarding  or  censuring  the  con- 
duct of  his  children — a  bridegroom  listening  to  the  blushing 
confessions  of  his  bride — these  are  very  different  in  their 
character  and  aspect  from 

"A  God  in  grandeur  and  a  world  on  fire!" 
Let  us  now  pass  from  the  judgment  of  the  Church  in 
the  clouds — 

II.  To  the  judgment  of  the  nations,  described  in  Matt. 

XXV. 

After  the  Church  is  gone,  caught  up,  Anti-Christ  will  be 
fully  revealed  and  that  will  usher  in  the  greatest  tribula- 
tion that  will  ever  be  known  on  the  earth  and  this  will  be 
followed  by  our  Lord's  coming  to  the  earth,  when  the  first 
judgment  of  the  wicked  will  take  place — which,  must  now 
engage  our  attention — and 

i.  It  is  a  judgment  of  the  living  only — not  of  the  dead  or 
of  the  risen.  There  is  not  a  dead  person  in  it.  It  is  a  judg- 
ment not  of  the  Church,  but  of  all  nations.  It  is  a  judg- 
ment in  which  there  are  2  classes,  the  saved  and  the  lost ;  not 
like  the  judgment  of  the  Church  in  which  all  are  saved  but 
some  so  as  by  fire. 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  judgment  of  what  the  Scripture 
denominates  the  "quick."  "who  shall  judge  both  the  quick 
and  the  dead."  This  is  the  judgment  of  the  quick  or  of  the 
living.     There  is  not  a  hint  of  a  dead  person  in  it. 

The  event  referred  to  is  undobutedly  that  predicted  by 
the  prophets  Zechariah  and  Joel.  "The  Lord  my  God  shall 
come  and  all  the  saints  with  Thee.  His  feet  shall  stand 
upon  the  Mount  of  Olives.  Assemble  yourselves  and  come 
all  ye  Gentiles — gather  yourselves  together  and  come  up  to 
the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  for  there  will  I  sit  to  judge  all  the 
heathen  round  about.  Put  ye  in  the  sickle  for  the  harvest 
is  ripe.  Come  get  you  down  for  their  wickedness  is  great. 
Multitudes,  multitudes  in  the  valley  of   decision — for  the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  3*9 

Day  of  the  LORD  is  near  in  the  valley  of  decision.  The 
Lord  shall  roar  out  of  Zion  and  utter  His  voice  from  Jerusa- 
lem, and  the  heavens  and  the  earth  shall  shake — but  the 
LORD  will  be  the  hope  of  His  people  and  the  strength  of 
the  children  of  Israel." 

The  judgment  is  of  the  nations.  It  is  the  Stone  falling  on 
the  toes  of  the  great  image.  It  will  be  upon  the  nations 
gathered  at  Jerusalem  that  He  will  alight  in  His  appearing. 

There  are  3  parties  in  this  judgment  as  you  will  observe 
.  The  sheep  or  those  who  have  stood  out  and  have  not 
received  the  mark  of  the  beast — the  goats  or  sympathizers 
with  Anti-Christ, — and  the  brethren,  or  the  Jews  who  have 
been  used,  after  the  Church's  departure,  to  publish  and  stand 
for  the  truth.  The  manner  in  which  Christ's  messengers 
have  been  treated  will  test  the  real  feelings  of  both  goats 
and  sheep.  A  straw  will  show  which  way  the  wind  blows 
and  a  light  straw  more  readily  than  a  heavy  one.  It  will 
be  a  day  in  which  the  thoughts  of  many  hearts  will  be  re- 
vealed, and  in  which  judgment  will  be  pronounced  upon 
men  according  to  their  omissions — according  to  what  they 
did  not  do — to  what  they  lacked.  Men  will  expostulate. 
They  will  say,  "When  saw  we  Thee  an  hungered."  The 
reply  will  be — "What  one  positive  act  have  you  ever  done 
for  My  sake,  My  glory  alone?  Did  you  confess  Me?  Did 
you  refuse  to  hold  fellowship  with  or  apologize  for  the  un- 
godly? Did  you  put  yourself  in  any  way  of  pain,  or  loss,  or 
persecution  or  opprobrium  for  My  sake?  Were  you  out 
and  out  in  the  support  of  My  messengers?" 

The  judgment,  in  answer  to  these  questions,  will  be  final. 
There  is  no  appeal — there  never  can  be.  The  condemned, 
whatever  their  pretences  and  whatever  their  professions 
were  unregenerate  men.  They  did  not  love  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  enough  to  suffer  for  Him  and  that  is  evident. 

After  this  and  a  thousand  years  later  comes  the 

III.  Judgment — that  of  the  dead  and  of  the  dead  only. 
This  judgment  is  described  in  Rev.  xx  and  occurs  at  the 
close,  as  Matt,  xxv  does  at  the  beginning,  of  the  thousand 
years  reign.  It  is  the  judgment  of  the  "rest  of  the  dead" — 
of  the  dead  out  of  Christ — who  "lived  not  until  the  thousand 
years  are  finished."     For  as  the  coming  forth  of  the  right- 


330  THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE. 

eous  from  the  tomb  in  the  First  Resurrection  is  their  open 
acquittal  and  vindication  before  the  universe,  so  the  non- 
resurrection  of  the  wicked  is  their  silent  condemnation — 
which  silent  condemnation,  however,  must  be  made  public 
and  visible  at  the  Second  Resurrection  and  before  the  Great 
White  Throne. 

The  judgment  scene  of  Rev.  xx  is  not  that  of  Matt,  xxv, 
but  differs  from  it  in  these  among  other  particulars. 

i.  Matt,  xxv  is  at  the  appearing  of  Christ — Rev.  xx  is  at 
the  end  of  the  millennium  when  He  delivers  up  the  king- 
dom. 

2.  Matt,  xxv  is  a  judgment  before  Christ  on  the  throne 
of  His  glory — Rev.  xx  is  before  God  in  His  absoluteness  on 
the  Great  White  Throne. 

3.  Matt,  xxv  is  a  judgment  of  the  living  only — Rev.  xx 
of  the  dead  only,  not  a  living  person  in  it. 

4.  The  judgment  of  Matt,  xxv  turns  on  the  treatment  of 
Christ  and  His  brethren — that  of  Rev.  xx  does  not,  but 
on  sins  recognized  by  the  general  conscience.  They  are 
judged  out  of  the  Books.  The  Book  of  their  record — the 
Book  of  the  Law  and  the  Book  of  Life.  The  last  Book  is 
opened  and  their  names  are  not  found  in  it. 

5.  The  judgment  of  Rev.  xx  is,  as  we  have  seen  "out 
of  the  Books."    In  Matt,  xxv  no  Books  are  mentioned. 

6.  In  Matt,  xxv  the  judgment  is  in  time.  In  Rev.  xx  it  is 
in  eternity. 

7.  In  Matt,  xxv,  it  is  on  earth.  In  Rev.  xx  heaven  and 
earth  have  fled  away. 

8.  The  judgment  of  Matt,  xxv  is  in  the  valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat.  That  of  Rev.  xx  is  in  space  illimitable  and  when 
time  shall  be  no  more. 

9.  In  Matt,  xxv,  the  condemned  depart  into  everlasting 
fire  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels.  The  devil  is  not 
yet  there.  In  Rev.  xx  the  dead  are  cast  into  the  lake  of 
fire  where  the  devil  now  is — and  death  and  hell  are  cast  in 
after  them — i.  e.  it  is  the  last  judgment  that  will  ever  pass 
upon  men.     Complete,  utter  and  final. 

Now  notice:  If  any  one  should  be  mistaken  about  him- 
self and  not  be  in  the  First  Resurrection  and  the  judgment 
of  the  believer,  and  Church — then  he  may  come  into  Matt, 
xxv,  but  if  not  that — if  he  dies  before  the  second  judgment 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  331 

he  certainly  will  come  into  this  one  of  the  Great  White 
Throne.  Not  for  ten  thousand  worlds,  ten  million  times 
told  would  I,  for  one,  come  into  it. 

Oh  how  dreadful  to  miss  the  First  Resurrection.  "The 
man  that  wandereth  out  of  the  way  of  understanding,"  says 
Solomon,  "Shall  remain  in  the  congregation  of  the  dead." 

Oh  how  dreadful — "who  can  think  of  it" — to  stanu  be- 
fore the  Great  White  Throne. 

Oh  how  dreadful!  Who,  with  calmness,  can  contemplate 
it — to  hear  the  sentence  ringing  and  repeated.  "Depart 
ye  cursed  into  everlasting  fire !" 

But  there  is  a  remedy.  Thank  God,  there  is.  We  all 
know  it.  Let  us  all  embrace  it.  Let  us  take  advantage  of 
the  kind,  the  gracious,  the  ample  provision  made  in  the 
atonement  and  in  the  promise  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  He  who  casts  himself  on 
Him  shall  never  be  cast  into  the  Lake  of  Fire. 

But  if  not — what  then?  Why  then  judgment  does  not 
mean  the  condoning  of  offences — the  palliating  of  wicked- 
ness. There  is  no  forgiveness  save  on  the  condition  of  re- 
pentance and  the  acknowledgment  I  have  been  wrong. 


332  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


WATCH— THE  SECOND  ADVENT. 

St.  Matt,  xxiv  :42. 

"Watch  therefore :  for  ye  know  not  what  hour  your  Lord  doth 
come." 

The  twenty-fourth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  puts 
more  comprehensively  than  any  other  part  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, the  outlines  of  the  future.  These  outlines  are  few  and 
meagre  but  they  are  distinct  and  salient  and  must  be  filled 
in  from  other  teachings  found  in  both  the  Testaments. 

The  chapter  is  a  prophecy,  not  a  retrospect.  It  was  not 
written,  as  the  "higher  criticism"  has  dared  to  insinuate, 
after  the  events  referred  to  had  taken  place,  for  the  events 
have  only,  as  yet,  in  part  taken  place,  and  our  Lord's  dis- 
course bears,  in  its  very  vagueness,  the  evidence  that  it  is 
genuine.  Had  it  been  spoken  or  written  after  the  downfall 
of  Jerusalem,  it  must,  inevitably,  have  dealt  with  details 
which  would  have  marred  and  confused  it.  As  it  is,  and 
precisely  as  it  stands,  it  affords  a  magnificent  illustration 
of  that  sublime  consciousness  of  life  and  power  in  Christ — 
infinitely  beyond  the  limits  of  any  mere  manhood — which 
is,  itself,  the  disclosure  of  His  Divinity.  None  but  He  who 
dwells  in  eternity  and  who  knows  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning could  so  picture  the  future. 

The  chapter  is  a  prophecy  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord  in 
connection  with  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem. 

The  chapter  is  a  prophecy  which  the  downfall  of  Jerusa- 
lem does  not  exhaust. 

It  is  a  prophecy  therefore  running  on  beyond,  but  which, 
leaving  room  for  intervening  events,  gives  us  no  ground 
for  building  on  these. 

It  is  a  prophecy  in  which  the  coming  of  the  Lord  is  re- 
moved from  all  connection  with  events,  and  is  distinguished 
from  His  appearing. 

It  is  a  prophecy  in  which  the  appearing,  or  open  mani- 
festation of  the  kingdom  and  glory  of  the  Lord,  will  be 
preceded  by  certain,  definite  events,  while  His  coming — 
which  is  secret — will  not  be. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  333 

It  is  a  prophecy  in  which  our  knowledge  of  the  appearing 
is  for  instruction  and  guidance ;  our  knowledge  of  the  com- 
ing for  the  quickening  of  our  spiritual  nature,  and  for 
readiness  of  soul.    Let  us  notice,  then,  the  future. 

I.  In  its  inspired  programme  for  guidance. 

II.  In  its  solemn  emphasis  upon  the  admonition, 
"Watch."   And 

I.  In  its  inspired  programme  for  guidance.  I  ask  you  to 
trace,  with  me  FOUR  LINES,  like  mountain  ranges,  run- 
ning through  Scripture. 

1.  One  is  the  line  of  the  Jews  to  whom  were  made  the 
promises  of  a  terrestrial  kingdom.  God  promised  to  give 
them  the  Land  of  Canaan  as  a  possession  forever. 

That  possession  Israel  has  now  forfeited  for  a  season.  It 
is  quite  evident  that  Palestine  is  not  in  the  possession  of  the 
Jew.  It  is  quite  evident  that  Jerusalem  has  been  destroyed, 
just  as  our  Saviour  said  it  would  be,  and  that  since  that  de- 
struction the  land  has  lain  desolate,  the  most  desolate  and 
barren,  although  by  nature  the  mose  eligible  and  fertile  of 
all  lands.  "Jerusalem  shall  be  trodden  down  of  the  Gen- 
tiles." we  are  told,  "until  the  times  of  the  Gentiles  be  ful- 
filled." 

But  although  the  land  remains  thus  desolate,  and  the 
nation  which  rejected  Jesus  has  been,  and  still  is,  so  scat- 
tered and  sifted  through  the  earth  that  there  is  scarcely  a 
corner  of  it  where  the  Jew  is  not  to  be  found,  the  time  is 
coming  when  God's  promise  will  be  seen  to  be  permanent, 
and  when  the  Hebrew  nation  will  go  back  to  their  own  land, 
rebuild  their  temple  and  in  glorious  reversion  be  made  the 
"head"  of  the  nations,  being  the  "tail"  no  more. 

The  scriptural  reasons  which  we  have  for  believing  this — 
and  we  have  none  but  scriptural  reasons,  since  we  are  now 
dealing  with  a  subject  known  onlv  to  God,  the  matter  only 
of  His  special  revelation — the  scriptural  reasons  for  believ- 
ing that  Israel  will  yet  return  to,  and  possess  in  perpetuity 
the  Land  of  Promise,  are, 

First — The  Promise  itself,  which  is  most  explicit.  "As 
for  Me,"  God  says  to  Abraham,  "I  will  establish'  my  cove- 


334  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

nant  between  Me  and  thee,  and  thy  seed  after  thee  in  their 
generations,  for  an  everlasting  covenant,  to  be  a  God  unto 
thee,  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee.  And  I  will  give  unto  thee, 
and  to  thy  seed  after  thee,  the  land  wherein  thou  art  a 
stranger,  all  the  land  of  Canaan,  for  an  everlasting  posses- 
sion." This  promise  is  absolute.  It  is  unconditional.  It 
was  renewed  again  to  Isaac  and  again  to  Jacob.  It  runs 
through  the  Old  Testament.  Should  the  promise  of  a  ter- 
restrial land  to  Israel  be  broken,  what  guarantee  have  we 
that  any  promise  of  God  will  be  kept?  If  the  earthly 
Canaan  is  not  sure  to  the  earthly  seed  how  is  the  Heavenly 
Canaan  sure  to  the  Heavenly  Seed  ?  If  Israel  can  fall  totally 
and  finally  from  grace,  why  not  the  believer  fall  totally  and 
finally  from  grace?  Again:  if  God  will  restore  the  Jew — 
however,  for  a  time,  He  may  seem  to  abandon  him — then 
He  will  restore  any  man  in  covenant  with  him,  whatever 
may  be  his  backslidings.  We  know  that  Christ's  sheep  can- 
not perish,  that  eternal  life  cannot  die,  and  that  God  has 
promised  "I  will  heal  their  backslidings."  In  like  manner, 
God  has  promised  to  restore  Israel  to  the  literal  Canaan 
once  given  to  their  fathers  for  an  inheritance. 

We  find  this  promise  in  language  which  declares  that  God 
will  a  "second  time"  restore  His  people — this  time  not  par- 
tially and  from  Babylon  alone  but  in  all  the  tribes  and  from 
all  lands — from  Egypt — from  Cush  or  Ethiopia — from 
Elam  or  Persia — from  Shinar — from  Hamath  and  from  the 
very  islands  of  the  sea.  "And  He  shall  set  up  an  ensign  for 
the  nations,  and  shall  assemble  the  outcasts  of  Israel  and 
gather  together  the  dispersed  of  Judah  from  the  four  cor- 
ners of  the  earth." 

We  find  the  promise  in  the  prediction  that  the  enmity  be- 
tween the  two  great  divisions — the  ten  tribes  and  the  two 
tribes  shall  depart — "Ephraim  shall  not  envy  Judah  and 
Judah  shall  not  vex  Ephraim — "  in  the  prediction  that  these 
two  great  divisions  Joseph  and  Judah  shall  be  united  as  two 
sticks  which  become  one  stick  and  that  they  shall  have  one 
king  over  them  and  not,  any  longer,  be  two  nations. 

We  find  the  promise  in  the  description  of  the  Temple 
which  is  to  be  rebuilt — the  plan  of  which — given  in  Ezekiel 
xl  to  xlv.  is  different  from  that  of  any  former  temple  ever 
built  on  Mt.  Moriah — a  temple  nine  miles  square,  all  its 
specifications  being  minute  and  exact. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  335 

We  find  the  promise  in  the  future  division  of  the  land 
among  the  tribes,  a  totally  different  arrangement  from  that 
of  ancient  times. 

We  find  the  promise  in  the  fact  that  the  land  of  Pales- 
tine is  to  be  geographically  changed — so  as  to  make  Jerusa- 
lem a  seaport — water  flowing  from  the  Mediterranean  into 
the  Dead  Sea,  1,300  feet  lower  in  its  level,  through  a  grand 
canal  which  shall  pass  from  Ascalon  through  Jerusalem  and 
so  down  through  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Red  Sea  into  the 
Indian  Ocean.  "And  it  shall  be  in  that  day  that  living 
waters  shall  go  out  from  Jerusalem — half  of  them  toward 
the  former  sea  and  half  of  them  toward  the  hinder  sea — in 
summer  and  in  winter  shall  it  be — i.  e.  there  shall  be  no 
check  to  navigation  through  shrinkage  or  freezing. 

We  find  this  promise  in  the  prediction  that  Gog  and 
Magog  and  the  nations  of  the  North  shall  yet  come  up 
against  the  beloved  city  and  that  God  will  there  destroy 
them. 

2.  The  second  line  in  the  Programme  of  Prophecy  is 
that  of  the  Antichrist.  The  Book  of  Daniel  gives  us  a 
graphic  description  of  the  Progress  of  Empire  during  the 
period  of  Israel's  rejection.  That  rejection  began  with  the 
captivity  under  Nebuchadnezzar  and  became  final  at  the 
downfall  of  Jerusalem. 

The  period  of  the  Jewish  rejection  is  termed,  by  the 
Scripture,  "the  times  of  the  Gentiles."  It  begins  with  a 
head  of  gold  in  Babylon — runs  down  into  arms  of  silver  in 
Medo-Persia,  into  thighs  of  brass  in  Greece,  and  into  legs 
of  iron  and  feet  and  toes  of  miry  clay  in  the  Roman  do- 
minion, broken  up  and  divided  into  the  ten  kingdoms  of 
mediaeval  and  modern  Europe. 

In  the  midst  of  these  ten  kingdoms,  Daniel  describes  the 
emergence  of  a  power  partly  religious  and  partly  secular, 
styled  the  "Little  Horn."  This  Little  Horn  shall  speak 
great  words  against  the  Most  High  and  shall  make  war 
with  the  saints  and  prevail  against  them. 

In  II  Thess.  2 :  we  have  a  more  particular  description 
"For  the  mystery  of  iniquity  doth  already  work,  only  He 
who  now  letteth  will  let  until  He  be  taken  out  of  the  way. 
And  then  shall  that  Wicked  One  be  revealed  whom  the 


336  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Lord  shall  consume  with  the  spirit  of  His  mouth,  and  shall 
destroy  with  the  brightness  of  His  coming. 

We  are  told  in  the  word  of  God  that  notwithstanding  the 
First  Advent  of  the  Messiah  and  the  glorious  light  of  the 
Gospel  which  shall  be  preached  as  a  witness  unto  all  na- 
tions— there  shall  nevertheless  proceed  a  steady  apostasy — 
from  small  germs  developing  in  larger  germs  until  it  comes 
to  full  bud  and  flower  in  the  Beast  of  Revelation  xiii  and 
xvii.  "The  ten  horns  which  thou  sawest  are  ten  kings. 
These  have  one  mind  and  shall  give  their  power  and 
strength  unto  the  Beast.  These  shall  make  war  with  the 
Lamb  and  the  Lamb  shall  overcome  them  for  He  is  the 
Lord  of  lords  and  King  of  kings." 

"The  mystery  of  iniquity  says  the  Apostle,  doth  already 
work.  It  was  working  in  the  Gnostic  heresies  of  the 
Apostle's  day.  It  has  been  working  ever  since,  and,  more 
alarmingly  than  ever,  is  it  working  now  at  the  close  of  a 
century  of  revival  in  which  the  Church  of  God  has  shown 
her  greatest  propagandist  power.  One  has  only  to  ask  the 
men  of  hoary  heads  among  us,  "What  is  the  state  of  things 
as  regards  the  truth  of  God  in  this  and  in  other  Protestant 
lands  compared  with  50  years  ago?"  We  know  that  the 
very  scriptures  of  truth  have  been  undermined  in  our  land. 
We  know  that  the  principles  assumed  as  fundamental  by 
our  fathers  have  been  openly,  unblushingly  and  with  ridi- 
cule, and  worse  than  all,  with  large  support  of  public  senti- 
ment, assailed.  We  know  that  people  calling  themselves  re- 
ligious, do  not  hesitate  to  disseminate  doctrines  which  not 
only  set  the  soul  in  array  against  God  and  the  revelation  of 
God,  but  the  sexes  in  array  against  each  other  and  against 
the  Divine  Constitution  of  the  social  fabric  which  makes 
each  man  the  head  of  his  own  house  and  places  children  in 
subordination.  We  know  that  the  Anarchic  and  subversive 
spirit  is  abroad,  that,  beginning  with  the  very  leaders  whom 
we  had  a  right  to  trust  would  be  conservators  of  the  truth, 
the  axe  of  modern,  so  called,  scientific  criticism  has  been 
chopping  away — first  the  underpinning  of  Revelation,  then 
of  the  Church,  then  of  society  and  preparing,  in  the  rapid 
shifting  of  opinion  and  of  events,  for  the  Politico-religious 
crisis  which  is  upon  us.  It  looks  as  if  the  leveling  principle 
would  run  its  length  and  that  then  a  reaction  will  set  in  in 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  337 

which  a  grand  system  of  Imperialism — a  Throne  with  ten 
thrones  under  it,  will  constitute  the  mighty  pyramid  which 
will  sustain  the  Antichrist. 

I  do  not  deny  the  presence  of  this  principle  in  the  Papacy, 
but  the  son  of  perdition  is  something  far  more  advanced 
than  anything  which  has  yet  sprung  from  the  waves  of  the 
Tiber.  The  Bible  prepares  us  for  a  more  terrible  Personage 
than  any  Hildebrand  or  Leo.  It  ominously  points  to  a 
Prince  of  Rosh,  of  Meshech  and  Tubal — of  Russia,  Mos- 
cow and  Tobolsk  who  shall  yet  succeed  in  blending  all 
systems  religious  and  secular  in  one  and  between  whom  and 
the  restored  Jewish  people  will  be  fought  out  that  great 
Armageddon  in  the  midst  of  which,  and  in  the  moment  of 
his  victory,  the  Lord  Jesus,  suddenly  appearing,  in  His 
mighty  advent,  shall  consume  him  with  the  spirit  of  His 
mouth  and  destroy  him  with  the  brightness  of  His  coming. 

3.  The  third  line  is  that  of  the  Millennium. 

The  Bible — from  one  end  to  the  other — puts  the  Golden 
Age,  not  back  in  the  dawn-light  of  Creation  but  fonvard  in 
the  fulness  of  the  times — not  behind  us  in  Eden  but  before 
us  in  the  blessedness  of  a  paradise  regained — in  which  a 
king  shall  rule  in  judgment  and  princes  in  righteousness 
and  when  the  earth  shall  be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  Lord  and  the  kingdom  and  the  dominion  and  the  great- 
ness of  the  kingdom  under  the  whole  heaven  shall  be  given 
to  the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High.  The  scripture 
teaches  that  all  changes  however  apparently  adverse  and 
marked  by  bloodshed,  cruelty  and  deterioration  are — like 
a  tide  which,  on  the  whole,  advances — even  though  its  indi- 
vidual waves  fall  back — surely  although  slowly  preparing 
the  way  of  that  final  stage,  Millennium. 

When  shall  this  blessed  Millennium  begin?  The  scrip- 
ture makes  this  clear  in  its  doctrine  of  the  First  Resurrec- 
tion. There  are  to  be  two  resurrections,  as  our  Saviour 
teaches — one  of  the  just  and  another  of  the  unjust.  The 
First  Resurrection  is  of  believers  only — the  Lord  shall 
descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the 
Archangel  and  of  the  trump  of  God  and  the  dead  in  Christ 
shall  rise  first" 

The  Second  Resurrection — that  of  the  rest  of  the  dead 


338  THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE. 

and  of  the  "unjust" — will  take  place  a  thousand  years  later, 
i.  e.  at  the  close  of  the  Millennium.  "But  the  rest  of  the 
dead  lived  not  until  the  thousand  years  were  finished." 

It  is  evident  that  the  Millennium  cannot  occur  before  the 
First  Resurrection  because  then  those  who  have  died  in  the 
Lord  cannot  partake  in  it.  But  they  must  partake  in  it  for 
"I  saw  thrones  and  they  sat  on  them,  and  judgment  was 
given  unto  them — and  I  saw  the  souls  of  them  that  were 
beheaded  for  the  witness  of  Jesus  and  for  the  Word  of  God 
and  which  had  not  worshipped  the  Beast  neither  his  image, 
neither  had  received  his  mark  in  their  foreheads,  or  in 
their  hands,  and  they  lived  and  reigned  with  Christ  a  thou- 
sand years.  This  is  the  first  resurrection.  Blessed  and  holy 
is  he  that  hath  part  in  the  First  Resurrection — on  such  the 
second  death  hath  no  power,  but  they  shall  be  priests  of 
God  and  of  Christ  and  shall  reign  with  Him  a  thousand 
years." 

It  is  equally  evident  from  what  has  been  seen  before,  viz., 
from  the  continual  progress  of  apostasy  and  evil  in  the 
world,  that  there  can  be  no  Millennium  before  the  destruc- 
tion of  Antichrist.  There  can  be  no  Millennium  with  an 
Antichrist  in  it,  or  an  Antichrist  to  end  it.  Antichrist  is  de- 
stroyed before  the  Millennium  begins. 

It  is  evident  again  that  the  Millennium  cannot  begin  until 
Satan  is  bound.  There  can  be  no  Millennium  with  the  devil 
the  Prince  of  the  world  and  the  power  of  the  air  as  he  is  at 
present.  He  must  be  bound  and  we  are  told  that  this  bind- 
ing will  be  at  the  beginning  of  the  thousand  years  and  will 
last  until  they  are  over.  "And  I  saw  an  angel  come  down 
from  heaven  having  the  key  of  the  bottomless  pit  and  a 
great  chain  in  his  hand.  And  he  laid  hold  on  the  dragon, 
that  old  serpent  which  is  the  devil  and  bound  him  a  thou- 
sand years.  And  when  the  thousand  years  are  expired 
Satan   shall   be   loosed  out  of  his   prison." 

The  Millennium  must  come  before  the  world  can  be 
converted — for  the  scriptures,  so  far  from  promising  us  a 
Millennium  of  universal  righteousness  before  Christ  comes, 
invariably  represent  the  world  as  abounding  if  not  growing 
in  wickedness  down  to  the  very  moment  of  His  coming. 
Wheat  and  tares  shall  grow  together  until  the  harvest — 
wicked  men  and  seducers  shall  wax  worse  and  worse, — 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  339 

When  the  Son  of  Man  Cometh  shall  He  find  faith  on  the 
earth?  As  Matthew  Henry  puts  it,  "So  long  as  the  present 
age  continues  there  will  be  in  it  such  a  mixture  as  we  now 
see."  We  long  to  see  all  wheat  and  no  tares  in  Gold's  field 
— but  it  will  not  be  till  the  time  of  ingathering.  Till  the 
winnowing  day  comes,  both  must  "grow  together  until  the 
harvest."  "Without  doubt,"  says  Cotton  Mather,  "the  king- 
doms of  this  world  will  not  become  the  kingdoms  of  God 
and  of  His  Christ,  before  the  preordained  time  in  which  the 
reward  shall  be  given  to  the  servants  of  God.  They  who 
expect  the  rest  promised  for  the  Church  of  God  to  be  found 
anywhere  but  in  the  new  earth  or  any  happy  times  for  the 
Church  in  the  world  which  still  has  death  and  sin  in  it — 
these  do  err  not  knowing  the  scriptures  nor  the  kingdom  of 
God." 

The  explicit  teaching  of  St.  James  in  the  fifteenth  of 
the  Acts  is  that  the  object  of  this  present  dispensation  is  not 
the  conversion  of  the  world  but  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel 
as  a  witness  to  all  nations  that  God  may  take  out  of  them 
a  people  for  his  name.  When  this  people  have  been  "taken 
out"  and  the  Holy  Ghost  who  now  letteth  or  hindereth  has 
been  withdrawn  then  iniquity  will  come  in  like  a  flood — all 
barriers  will  go — the  Antichrist  will  be  revealed — the  great 
Tribulation  will  follow — the  Jews  who  survive  it  will  be 
converted  by  the  appearing  of  the  Messiah,  "they  shall  look 
on  Him  whom  they  have  pierced" — the  Antichrist  will  be 
destroyed — Satan  bound,  and  in  a  new  earth  in  which  the 
entire  creation  shall  again  return  to  pristine  loveliness. 

"On  David's  throne  shall  David"s  offspring  reign 

And  the  dry  bones  be  warm  with  life  again 

Ten  thousand  harps  attune  the  mystic  song 

Ten  thousand  thousand  saints  the  strain  prolong, — 

Worthy  the  Lamb !    Omnipotent  to  save 

Who  died,  who  lives,  triumphant  o'er  the  grave. 

Oh,  scenes  surpassing  fable,  and  yet  true ! 
Scenes  of  accomplished  bliss  !  Which,  who  can  see, 
Though  but  in  distant  prospect,  and  not  feel 
His  soul  refreshed  with  foretastes  of  the  joy." 

4,     The  fourth  line  is  that  of  the  Church  which,  through 


340  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  course  of  the  ages,  is  divided  into  the  invisible  and  visi- 
ble, The  visible  church  in  the  Old  Testament  was  that  which 
called  on  the  name  of  the  Lord  with  Seth — went  through 
the  deluge  with  Noah — was  summoned  out  of  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees  with  Abraham.  To  this  visible  church  pertained 
the  Oracles  of  God — the  Sacrificial  Altar — the  glory — the 
Covenants — circumcision,  the  giving  of  the  Law — an  ex- 
ternal service  and  a  worldly  sanctuary.  "Yet,"  says  the 
Apostle,  "all  are  not  Israel  that  are  of  Israel — that  is  they 
which  are  the  children  of  the  flesh,  these  are  not  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  but  the  children  of  promise  are  counted  for 
the  seed."  In  another  place,  he  says :  "They  which  are  of 
faith — i.  e.  true  believers — the  same  are  the  children  of 
Abraham." 

The  ancient  church,  we  know  apostatized.  In  this  very 
context  our  Lord  says,  "Behold  your  house  is  left  unto  you 
desolate." 

In  the  New  Testament  the  same  distinction  of  invisible 
and  visible  church  is  kept  up.  "I  speak  not  of  you  all,  I 
know  whom  I  have  chosen."  "Not  every  one  that  saith 
unto  Me,  Lord !  Lord !  shall  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
Wheat  and  tares  grow  together.  Wise  and  foolish  virgins 
wake  together  at  the  midnight  cry.  The  apostolic  church 
had  in  it  such  men  as  Judas,  Simon  Magus,  Demas,  Diotre- 
phes,  as  well  as  Peter,  Barnabas,  and  James,  and  John. 

And  as  the  Jewish  church  apostatized  in  its  dispensation, 
so,  we  are  informed,  the  Christian  church  will  apostatize  in 
ours.  The  2d  and  3d  chapters  of  the  Revelation  give  us  the 
seven  stages  of  this  apostasy.  Ephesus,  or  the  Apostolic 
church,  loses  its  first  love.  Smyrna,  the  church  of  the  ten 
persecutions — of  the  martyrdom  follows.  Then  Pergamos, 
"the  high  tower" — the  church  lifted  up  under  Constantine. 
Then  Thyatira,  the  woman  Jezebel — idolatrous  Rome  before 
the  Reformation.  Then  Sardis — Protestantism,  in  which, 
under  large  profession,  the  remnant  walk  in  white.  Then 
Philadelphia,  or  the  open  door  of  Foreign  Missions.  Finallv 
relaxation,  sluggishness,  indifference — Laodicea  which 
Christ,  standing  at  the  door,  spews  out  of  his  mouth. 

The  same  downward  career  of  the  present  dispensation 
is  given  in  the  Seven  Parables  of  Matthew  xiii.  The  sower 
sows  the  seed  with  various  result.    Then  the  tares  come  in. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  341 

Then  the  mustard  tree  flourishes  until  it  gathers  in  all  sorts 
of  birds.  Then  the  false  woman  hides  the  leaven  of 
corruption  in  the  pure  meal  of  gospel  truth  until  the  whole 
is  leavened.  Then  the  question  comes  to  be  that  of  a  treas,- 
ure  hidden  in  the  field;  of  a  pearl  to  be  painfully  sought 
out  by  the  purchaser.  Finally,  the  drawing  in  of  the  net 
and  the  casting  of  the  bad  away. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this, 

THE  HOPE  OF  THE  TRUE  AND  INVISIBLE 
CHURCH  IS  FIXED  ON  ONE  EVENT,  THE  COM- 
ING OF  THE  LORD  JESUS,  WHICH  COMING  MAY 
BE  AT  ANY  MOMENT.  When  Christ  comes  the  invisible 
church  will  be  caught  up  out  of  the  midst  of  the  visible.  It 
will  be  a  secret  rapture.  "Two  shall  be  in  the  field,  one 
shall  be  taken  and  the  other  left.  Two  women  shall  be 
grinding  at  the  mill,  the  one  shall  be  taken  and  the  other 
left." 

It  will  be  a  secret  rapture — quiet,  noiseless,  sudden  as  the 
step  of  a  thief  in  the  night.  All  that  the  world  will  know 
will  be  that  multitudes  at  once  have  gone.  The  extras  will 
advertise  in  the  streets,  "Universal  consternation — remark- 
able disappearances.  Such  and  such  ministers  are  missing. 
Such  and  such  business  men  are  not  to  be  found.  Such  and 
such  women  of  high  and  low  position  have  left  their  places 
vacant." 

The  next  Sunday  the  fashionable  churches  will  show  cer- 
tain of  their  seats  empty.  In  smaller,  more  devoted 
churches,  the  majority  will  be  gone — only  a  remnant  left. 

For  some  days  nothing  else  can  be  talked  about.  Excite- 
ment will  become  tremendous.  Then  reaction  will  set  in. 
Philosophers  and  nationalizing  ministers  will  begin  to  ac- 
count for  the  phenomenon  on  scientific  principles.  The 
world  will  resume  its  occupations.  Money  will  close  up  the 
breach  in  the  churches.  Only  a  few  here  and  there  will 
wake  up  and  say — "It  is  too  late!  I  am  left  out.  My  godly 
relations  have  gone — the  Spirit  of  God  has  departed.  The 
reign  of  evil  unchecked  has  begun.  Foolish  Virgins — Fool- 
ish Virgins !  we  have  slept  awav  our  day  of  grace.  It  is 
too  late !" 

This  is  not  the  appearing — the  £7ti<paveia  —the  advent 
and  open  manifestation  of  Christ  in  which  he  returns  with 


342  THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE. 

His  saints  on  white  horses  for  the  destruction  of  Antichrist. 

This  is  antecedent — the  napov6ia,  the  coming  of  Christ 
for  His  saints — not  His  coming  with  them.  "For  the  Lord 
shall  descend  with  a  xeXevd/ua  — a  peculiar  and  familiar  call 
— with  a  <p oo vrj  or  voice  which  shall  awaken  the  sleeper — ■ 
with  a  rallying  note  like  the  repeating  echoes  of  a  bugle — 
and  "the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first.  Then  we  which  are 
alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up"> — like  Enoch  and 
Elijah — "together  with  them  into  the  clouds  to  meet  the 
Lord  in  the  air  and  so  shall  we  be  ever  with  the  Lord." 

All  the  scenes  of  the  Apocalypse — from  the  fourth  chap- 
ter where  St.  John  looks  through  a  door  into  heaven  and 
sees  the  elders  and  the  marriage  banquet  and  the  coming 
forth  of  the  armies  of  the  saints  on  white  horses,  occur 
after  this.  We  look  down  upon  the  scenes  of  the  great 
tribulation  from  heaven. 

Such  is  the  programme  of  the  future,  which,  without 
stopping  to  gratify  curiosity,  gives  all  the  information  re- 
quired for  our  practical  guidance,  while  it  focalizes  that  in- 
formation upon  a  single  bright  point  before  us — laying 
emphasis  upon  the  admonition — "watch."    That  is  the 

II  point — Watch!  The  coming  of  the  Lord  is  the  sum 
and  substance  of  the  Bible.  If  we  turn  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment we  shall  find  this  coming  in  glory  placed  along  with 
His  suffering  always.  We  never  read  about  the  first  coming 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  in  the  Old  Testament  without  reading  of 
the  second — and  although  we  do  read  about  the  second 
without  the  first,  never  do  we  read  about  the  first  without 
the  second. 

In  the  New  Testament  one  verse  in  every  thirty  empha- 
sizes the  immediate  coming  of  the  Lord.  The  Apocalypse  is 
built  upon  it. 

In  Thessalonians  i  :g  we  have  the  entire  process  of  sal- 
vation summed  up  in  just  two  things,  "Ye  were  delivered 
from  dead  idols,  to  serve  the  living  God ;  and,  to  wait  the 
coming  of  His  Son  from  heaven." 

The  only  right  attitude  of  a  believer,  as  pictured  to  us  in 
the  scripture  is  that  of  waiting, — of  being  intent.  "Watch 
ye  therefore  for  ye  know  not  what  hour  your  Lord  doth 
come!"    "Blessed  are  those  servants  whom  the  Lord  when 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  343 

He  cometh  shall  find  watching."  "Watch  ye  therefore  for  ye 
know  not  when  the  Master  of  the  house  cometh,  at  even,  or 
at  midnight,  or  at  the  cock-crowing,  or  in  the  morning 
Lest  coming  suddenly  He  find  you  sleeping.  And  what  I 
say  unto  you  I  say  unto  all,  watch !" 

We  are  to  watch  constantly,  hourly,  momently — for  there 
is  no  event  to  intervene  before  the  coming  of  the  Lord  for 
His  saints.  The  events  spoken  of — the  return  of  the  Jews, 
etc.,  have  nothing  to  do  with  His  secret  coming  for  His 
people,  but  only  with  His  subsequent  appearing.  The  con- 
version of  the  world  has  nothing  to  do  with  it — for  that  is 
after,  not  before,  His  appearing.  In  regard  to  this  whole 
argument  we  may  lay  it  down  as  a  conclusion  that  if — in 
looking  for  any  event  it  is  known  that  other  subordinate 
events  must  intervene,  it  will  be  impossible  for  us  to  fix  our 
eyes  immediately  and  undistractedly  on  that  special  event. 
For  example — if  a  wife  is  looking  for  her  husband  home 
from  Europe,  and  yet  knows  that  he  does  not  expect  to  re- 
turn for  six  months  at  least,  it  will  be  utterly  impossible  for 
her  to  watch  for  him  every  moment  and  to  start  with  joy  at 
each  ring  of  the  door  bell. 

Our  Lord's  coming  is  not  death.  "If  I  go  away,"  He  says, 
"I  will  return."  Death  does  not  go  away.  Death  does  not 
return  to  us.     Jesus  returns. 

In  all  the  New  Testament  there  is  no  emphasis  upon  death. 
No  dying  bed  described.  The  Apostles  do  not  preach  death 
but  "Jesus  and  the  Resurrection."  They  do  not  comfort 
believers  with  the  thought  of  death  but  of  the  glad  and  quick 
and  glorious  coming  of  the  Lord. 

He  is  to  come  in  like  manner  as  He  went  away :  How  did 
He  go  away?  All  at  once  they  saw  Him  lifting — lifting  into 
the  clouds.  They  saw  Him.  Who?  The  disciples — only 
the  disciples  saw  Him  go  and  only  disciples  will  see  Him 
when  He  comes  again,  in  the  clouds,  in  the  air.  The  world 
will  see  Him  afterward — like  lightning  which  shines  from 
the  east  to  the  west.  That  will  be  His  appearing  for  judg- 
ment. 

The  effect  of  this  belief  in  the  second  coming  we  are  told 
will  be  two-fold. 

The  faithful  heart — the  true  servant  will  be  alert.    His 


344  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

loins  girded  about,  his  lamp  trimmed  and  burning — that 
when  His  Lord  cometh  and  knocketh,  he  may  open  im- 
mediately. Of  such  it  is  said,  "But  ye  Brethren,  are  not  in 
darkness  that  that  day  shall  overtake  you  as  a  thief." 

The  other — the  unfaithful  heart  goes  to  sleep.  The  evil 
servant  says,  as  here  in  the  parable,  "My  Lord  delayeth  His 
coming."  What  is  the  effect?  It  is  then  he  begins  to  keep 
company  which  he  ought  not  to  keep  and  to  give  up  the 
company  of  those  he  ought  to  consort  with,  "and  shall 
begin  to  smite  his  fellow  servants  and  to  eat  and  drink  with 
the  drunken."  If  we  are  expecting  moment  by  moment 
to  be  caught  up  in  the  air,  we  shall  sit  loose  to  the  things 
of  this  world — we  shall  not  find  fault  and  strive  with  others 
— we  shall  not  give  ourselves  up  to  indulgence. 

Watch!   Watch! 

"Christian  seek  not  yet  repose, 
Hear  thy  guardian  angel  say, 
Thou  art  in  the  midst  of  foes. 
Watch  and  pray. 

Principalities  and  powers, 

Mustering  their  unseen  array 
Wait  for  thine  unguarded  hours, 

Watch  and  pray. 

Watch  as  if  on  that  alone 

Hung  the  issue  of  the  day, 
Pray  that  help  may  be  sent  down. 

Watch  and  pray." 

Watch !  Watch !  Take  heed  to  yourselves.  Christ  may 
come  at  any  moment.  Death  may  come  but  Christ  may  come 
before  death.     In  any  case  He  is  even  now  at  the  door. 

As  they  of  olden  time  were  to  pray  that  their  flight  might 
not  be  in  the  winter  so  we  should  beware  of  putting  off — to 
the  winter  of  a  dying  hour — when  the  harvest  is  past,  the 
summer  over  and  gone — that  interest  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ — which  having  in  the  time  of  opportunity  neglected, 
it  will  be  too  late, — 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  345 

"Watch !  'tis  your  Lord's  command 
And  while  we  speak  He's  near ; 
Mark  the  first  signal  of  His  hand 
And  ready  all  appear. 

Oh  happy  servant  He 

In  such  a  posture  found ! 
He  shall  his  Lord  with  rapture  see 

And  be  with  honor  crowned." 


346  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 


THE    SCOPE    OF    SCRIPTURE— THE    SWEEP    OF 

TIME. 

Isa.  xlvi:io. 

Declaring  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  from  ancient  times 
the  things  that  are  not  yet  done,  saying,  My  counsel  shall  stand, 
and  I  will  do  all  my  pleasure. 

PART  I. 

Creation  and  the  Church. 

The  Bible  begins  with  time,  i.  e.,  the  Universe,  and  ends 
with  time.  Time  and  the  Universe  are  co-terminus ;  paral- 
lels. The  Bible  is  a  Book  of  time  and  times.  Outside  of  its 
covers  is  God  and  Eternity. 

CREATION. 

The  Bible  begins  with  Creation — a  Double  creation :  first 
of  the  heavens  and  then  of  the  earth.  The  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  is  shown  in  the  first  Hebrew  letter  2  Beth. 
"In  a  beginning" — not  "the"  beginning;  there  is  no  "the." 
"In  a  beginning" — i.  e.,  in  time -beginning. 

3  Beth  is  the  preposition  "in"  but  it  also  stands  for  the 
numeral  2  and  is  here  written  twice  the  size  of  the  ordinary 
letter.      In    the  margin     we  read    X    ^Ti   Rabathi  Beth, 

"broad  Beth"  or  great  division:  in  other  words  "Pause! 
Mark  the  distinction  between  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth." 
Both  are  created  perfect.  God  creates  no  imperfection. 
The  earth  was  as  perfect  as  the  heavens  were. 

"But  the  earth."  The  particle  Vav  is  disjunctive — "But 
the  earth!"  Between  the  first  verse  and  the  second  is  a 
hiatus — a  chasm,  a  gulf  it  may  be  of  myriads  of  ages.  The 
first  verse  stands  all  solitary,  apart  and  by  itself.  Then 
the  second  verse  takes  up  the  earth  alone — "But  the  earth 
was  without  form  and  void"  tohu  va  bohu,  a  desolation  and 
chaos.  Was  it  so  in  the  beginning?  It  was  not  so.  Isa. 
34:11  and  45;  18  and  Jer.  4:23-27  tell  us  distinctly  that  the 
earth  was  not  created  tohu  va  bohu,  "without  form  and 
void." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  347 


CATASTROPHE. 

That  carries  us  back  to  the  Angelic  world.  There  has 
been  a  fall  involving  this  world  in  its  terrible  effects.  That 
carries  us  back  to  the  Morning  Stars,  the  Sons  of  God, — to 
Lucifer  and  the  demons. 

The  Bible  tells  us  of  a  being  terrible  and  vast:  all  but 
omnipotent  in  his  faculties  and  energies :  cunning  as  the 
oldest  of  serpents — clothed  as  an  angel  of  light,  although 
now  a  collapse  and  a  ruin. 

His  first  creation  is  glimpsed  for  us  in  Ezek.  28:11-20. 
He  was  the  head  and  the  precentor  of  the  creation — the 
anointed  cherub  that  covered  or  overshadowed  all  else,  the 
chief  of  the  three  mightiest  with  Michael  and  Gabriel — 
Lucifer  son  of  the  morning,  the  ruler  of  our  solar  system, 
having  his  palace  in  the  sun — the  wisest,  most  beautiful  and 
powerful  of  creatures.  "Thou  sealest  up  the  sum,  full  of 
wisdom  and  perfect  in  beauty.  Thou  art  the  anointed 
Cherub  that  covereth  and  I  have  set  thee  so :  thou  wast  upon 
the  holy  mountain  of  God ;  thou  hast  walked  up  and  down 
in  the  midst  of  the  stones  of  fire.  Thou  wast  perfect  in 
thy  ways  from  the  day  that  thou  wast  created,  till  iniquity 
was  found  in  thee.  Thou  hast  sinned  therefore  I  will  cast 
thee  as  profane  out  of  the  mountain  of  God :  and  I  will 
destroy  thee  O  covering  cherub  from  the  midst  of  the 
stones  of  fire.  Thine  heart  was  lifted  up  because  of  thy 
beauty,  thou  hast  corrupted  thy  wisdom  by  reason  of  thy 
brightness :  I  will  cast  thee  to  the  ground,  I  will  bring  thee 
to  ashes." 

Lucifer  fell.  He  fell  through  pride  and  arrogance.  The 
consequence  of  his  fall  was  the  ruin  of  his  whole  kingdom : 
the  chaos  of  this  world.  Smitten  down  from  seraphs  into 
serpents  (in  the  Hebrew  the  word  is  the  same),  the  devil 
and  his  angels  took,  perhaps,  those  awful  forms  of 
Deinosaurians  and  Megalosaurians  which  Geology  deals 
with  and  at  which  conceited  science,  with  its  theories  of 
evolution,  stares  and  wonders. 

RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  PLANET. 

The  second  verse  of  Genesis  begins  then,  with  the  earth 
found  a  chaos  under  a  darkened  sun,  the  empty  palace  of 


348  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  fallen  Satan.  It  begins  with  earth  a  chaos  and  describes 
a  work  of  reconstruction  embracing  six  literal  days.  The 
word  is  no  longer  bara,  "create,"  which  means  the  im- 
mediate calling  into  existence  of  something  from  nothing. 
The  word  now  is  asah  to  "mould"  or  make  over. 

The  days  are  literal  days. 

1.  The  Bible  says  "days"  and  days  of  "evening  and  morn- 
ing" i.  e.,  each  marked  by  one  of  the  earth's  revolutions — 
why  not? 

2.  If  the  days  were  periods  of  centuries  or  millenniums, 
what  becomes  of  the  plants  during  half  of  the  fourth  day 
or  period  ?  They  were  created  on  the  3d  day,  what  becomes 
of  them  during  the  cold  and  the  night  of  the  4th  day — an 
evening  of  millions  of  years? 

3.  God  might  have  made  all  these  changes  simultaneously 
— the  earth  as  it  is  in  an  instant.  If  He  could  make  it  in 
an  instant,  He  certainly  could  in  a  week. 

4.  The  7th  day  was  the  Sabbath — the  foundation  of  the 
fourth  commandment.  If  it  was  a  million  or  even  a  thou- 
sand years  long,  how  could  we  keep  such  a  recurring  Sab- 
bath?   How  could  even  Methuselah? 

5.  The  universe  moves  in  sevens.  Each  eighth  note  be- 
gins a  new  octave.  Each  seventh  wave  of  the  ocean  is 
highest.  Seven  colors  complete  the  solar  spectrum.  Seven 
was  called  by  the  fathers  aeiparthenos,  "always  a  virgin." 
It  indicates  not  only  perfection  but  progress  and  follows 
Christ  in  His  works  whithersoever  He  goeth.  It  is  7,  7, 
7 — from  octave  to  octave,  forever. 

In  passing  we  notice,  of  these  seven  days,  that  all  but 
the  second,  are  marked  by  the  words  "good,"  "very  good." 
Why  this  exception  ?  Is  it  not  because,  in  the  separation  of 
the  firmament  from  the  waters,  the  demons  escaped  from 
below — from  the  "deep,"  or  abyss  where  they  had  been 
hurled — into  the  regions  of  the  upper  air  where  now  they 
are?  Is  it  not  Satan's  anticipation  of  Eden?  How  then 
could  God  call  it  good  ? 

WHAT  WAS  LOST  IN  EDEN  ? 

Righteousness  was  lost.  They  saw  themselves  "naked." 
Every  creature  has  clothing.     Even  God  clothes  Himself 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  349 

with  light  as  with  a  garment.  The  saints  in  the  Revelation 
are  seen  in  "white  robes." 

Every  animal  produces  its  own  clothing  as  the  dog  its 
hair,  the  sheep  its  fleece.  So  from  Adam  there  shined  forth 
the  spiritual  principle  of  life  which  shed  over  and  around 
him  a  halo.     It  was  a  wondrous  holy,  diaphanous  veiling. 

When  they  sinned,  righteousness,  the  spiritual  life,  was 
gone  and  with  it  the  halo.  When  next  you  meet  a  holiness 
man,  a  man  who  claims  to  be  sinless,  ask  him — "Have  you 
the  halo?" 

Righteousness  was  gone :  the  spring,  the  principle  of 
righteousness  which  made  perfect  obedience  possible ;  the 
earning  of  heaven  possible ;  the  running  of  Adam's  career 
for  confirmation  possible —  "This  do  and  live."  Since  the 
fall,  the  keeping  of  a  perfect  law  is  impossible.  Not  only 
is  the  halo  gone,  but  depravity — the  poison  of  the  serpent 
is  in  us.  The  serpent  has  not  his  poison  from  imitation, 
from  the  influence  of  his  surroundings,  but  from  his  nature. 
So  with  fallen  man.  He.  is  "conceived  in  sin" — he  is  a 
generation  of  vipers ;"  "the  poison  of  asps  is  under  his 
lips."  "The  wicked  go  astray  as  soon  as  they  be  born 
speaking  lies."     Man  not  only  sins  but  it  is  in  him  to  sin. 

CAUSES  OF  THE  FLOOD. 

Water  runs  downhill,  never,  of  itself,  uphill.  So  with 
all  human  progress.  There  may  be  a  glittering  show  of  the 
outward  as  in  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome.  The  serpent  may 
glitter  and  be  beautiful.  He  may  be  for  a  time  compara- 
tively harmless,  innocuous,  but  he  is  all  the  while  growing 
a  larger  snake,  and  so  with  fallen  man.  It  was  so  before  the 
Flood  ;  Cain's  seed — "the  seed  of  the  serpent"  flourished, 
built  cities,  invented  arts,  advanced  in  science  and  music. 

"Daughters"  were  born.  There  is  an  emphasis  here. 
Women  came  to  the  fore  and  were  unduly  prominent.  In- 
stead of  woman's  desire  being  to  her  husband  and  his  rul- 
ing over  her,  his  desire  was  to  her  and  she  controlled  him, 
and  what  she  would  make  of  the  world  under  such  condi- 
tions became  manifest.  Home  life,  discipline  and  religion 
were  ended.  The  Sethite  seed  were  gradually  outnumbered 
and  absorbed  in  worldly  entanglements. 


35o  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Not  only  this :  spiritualism — the  occult  came  in — a  super- 
natural invasion  of  evil.  The  Nephilim,  the  "Fallen  ones" 
were  on  the  earth.  Our  version  says  "giants,"  but  the  word 
has  no  connection  whatever  with  the  idea  of  giants.  The 
giants  came  after  and  were  a  result  not  a  cause.  The  word 
Nephilim  from  Naphal  "to  fall,"  means  fallen  angels  and 
refers  to  that  particular  class  of  devils  whom  St.  Jude 
describes  as  keeping  not  their  "first  estate" — as  leaving 
their  own  sphere,  the  bounds  of  "their  own  habitation" — 
as  committing  a  sin  against  their  own  nature — and  who 
are  now  in  "chains  under  darkness,"  as  other  devils  are 
not,  waiting  for  judgment. 

The  Nephilim  or  fallen  ones  came  down  from  the  air 
and  watched  the  beautiful  daughters  of  "men;" — not  of 
Cain  only  but  of  mankind  in  general.  It  was  not  that 
Seth's  sons  took  Cain's  daughters,  but  it  was  that  fallen 
angels  in  attractive  forms  took  "women,"  not  wives  ishoth. 
but  women  nashim — "of  all  that  they  chose"  and  the  first 
one  to  fall  was  Tubal-cain's  sister  Naamah,  the  "Lovely." 

The  reasons  why  I  have  been  brought  to  think  this  to  be 
the  truth  of  Scripture  are, 

1.  It  says  so.  Scripture  must  be  taken  as  it  reads  unless 
there  be  the  intimation  of  a  trope  or  figure.  As  it  has  well 
been  put, — "where  a  literal  interpretation  will  stand,  the 
farthest  from  the  literal  is  generally  the  worst." 

2.  The  words  Beni-Elohim,  "sons  of  God"  are  nowhere 
in  the  Hebrew  used  of  men  but,  always  and  without  excep- 
tion, of  angels,  of  supernatural  beings.  Four  times,  in  Job 
I;  6— II:  i—  XXXVIII  7— Dan.  111:25,  these  words  will 
be  found  and  the  fact  may  be  verified. 

3.  The  emphasis  is  on  the  "daughters"  born,  not  on  the 
sons. 

4.  They  are  daughters  of  "Adam,"  not  only  of  Cain. 

5.  They  took  them  "women,"  not  wives. 

6.  Giants  were  born  of  these  unions  as  giants  never  would 
have  been  born  of  any  mingling  of  good  men  with  worldly 
or  bad  women,  else  why  are  not  giants  born  now  ? 

7.  All  the  legends  of  antiquity  tell  us  of  an  a<?e  of  demi- 
gods or  man-demons — men  of  gigantic  stature  nnd  world 
wide  renown.  Homer  is  full  of  this.  He  describes  Achilles 
as  born  of  Thetis  a  goddess  and  Peleus :     Eneas  as  born 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  351 

of  Anchises  and  Venus ;  Sarpedon  of  Jupiter  and  Laodameia ; 
Ialmenos  of  Mars  and  Astyoche ;  Hercules  of  Jupiter  and 
Alcmene,  &c.,  &c.  The  word  applied  to  the  gods  in  Homer 
is  "demon." 

8.  Modern  spiritualism  and  theosophy  are  pointing  awful- 
lv  to  a  return  to  intercourse- with  the  unseen  world.  Spirit 
hands  of  flesh  dissolving  in  the  air :  astral  bodies :  super- 
natural powers  bestowed  and  revelations  made, — these 
things  are  real.  If  witchcraft  or  communion  with  demons 
were  not  a  real  thing  why  in  both  Testaments  is  it  cata- 
logued among  the  worst,  if  not  the  chief  of  sins — a  sin 
to  be  visited  with  death?  "Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch 
to  live."  If  there  be  nothing  in  it,  what  means  the  appear- 
ance of  a  devil  under  the  form  of  the  dead  Samuel  in  the 
witch's  cave  at  Endor?  Why  is  it  expressly  said  that  Saul 
died  "for  his  transgression  against  the  Lord  and  for  ask- 
ing counsel  of  a  familiar  spirit,  lidrosh  baob  to  inquire  of 
IT?"  If  good  angels  can  appear,  as  men,  to  men,  and  eat 
and  drink  with  them  and  take  hold  of  them,  as  was  the  case 
with  Lot,  why,  so  far  as  the  physical  possibility  is  con- 
cerned, might  not  devils?  If  devils  can  enter  into  swine 
imparting  to  them  a  new  life  and  energy,  why  not  into  men, 
impelling  them,  becoming  part  of  them,  as  in  the  case  of 
Judas? 

Objection :  There  is  only  one  objection  to  the  plain 
scripture  statement  and  that  the  incredulous  "I  do  not  under- 
stand how  such  a  thing  could  be !"  In  other  words,  the 
objection  is  Reason  against  Scripture.  Reason  says  that  a 
woman  cannot  have  a  familiar  spirit.  The  word  of  God 
says  that  she  can ;  that  wickedness  may  come  to  such  a 
height  that  barriers  may  be  broken  down  and  devils  may 
come  in.    See  Rev.  IX  :2,  3 — XIII  :i,  11. 

All  this  sheds  wondrous  light  upon  the  Flood  and  its 
necessity.  It  was  a  drowning  not  of  natural  men  alone 
but,  with  them  also,  of  unnatural  men,  of  giants,  of  half- 
demons,  of  a  world  which  obliged  just  such  a  catastrophe. 

People  may  say:  "Well  what  if  it  be  true,  is  it  well  to 
dwell  upon  it?"  It  is  always  well  to  dwell  upon  what  God 
teaches.  Especially  is  it  important  to  emphasize  so  fearful 
a  fact  and  to  warn  against  so  frightful  a  danger  just  now 
when  Spiritualists  and  Theosophists  and  Christian  Scien- 


352  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

tists  and  even  Luciferians  are  multiplying  in  unsuspected 
numbers  among  us. 

THE   FALL  AND  THE  FLOOD  BRING   IN   THE   NECESSITY  OF 
SALVATION  BY  AN  IMPUTED  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

Can  a  man  lift  himself  up  from  the  ground  by  pulling 
upon  his  own  boot-straps?  Can  Niagara  run  itself  back 
into  Erie  ?  Can  a  fallen  creature  make  itself  unfallen — a 
serpent  change  itself  back  into  a  seraph,  or  by  an  effort  of 
will,  cast  out  a  poison  which  permeates  its  whole  nature? 
Serpent  he  is  and  serpent  he  will  remain,  let  him  twist  and 
writhe  as  he  may. 

Could  such  a  world  as  the  Antediluvian  save  itself  or 
help  to  save  itself?  Was  not  its  last  despairing  cry  a 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  man  must  have  a  righteousness 
from  outside  of  himself  wrought  out  by  Another  and  brought 
in  and  made  a  free  gift  to  him?  That,  as  by  one  Man's 
disobedience  many  were  made  sinners,  so  alone  by  the  obedi- 
ence of  one — as  St.  Paul  puts  it — the  dikaioma,  the  Personal 
performance;  the  meritorious  life-conduct  of  Christ,  His 
law-keeping  for  us — can  any  be  made  righteous. 

The  Antediluvian  world  shows  the  need  of  a  Substitute. 
It  shows  that  there  is  every  possibility  of  sin  in  man.  That 
there  is  not  a  worse  nature  in  hell  than  you  and  I  brought 
into  the  world  with  us.  That  there  is  no  sin  that  ever  was 
committed  which  we  might  not  commit  if  left  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  That  there  is  sin  enough  in  the  holiest  thing  we 
ever  felt  or  did,  to  damn  us.  That  shows  the  necessity  for  a 
Divine  Substitute  and  Redeemer — for  one  who  must  do  all 
for  us  and  for  the  world  of  which  we  form  a  part.  And 
that  compels 

THE  SECOND  ADVENT. 

That,  as  Christ  appeared  personally  and  not  by  proxy 
to  save  us  from  our  sins  and  bring  in  righteousness ;  so 
He  must  appear  again  and  personally  and  not  by  proxy  to 
save  and  to  restore  this  Globe,  the  fallen  star  which  we  in- 
habit. 

That,  as  He  appeared  personally  to  cleanse  the  leprosy 
from  the  leper,  so  He  must  appear  personally  to  cleanse  the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  353 

leprosy,  the  gangrene,  from  the  walls  of  the  house  in  which 
lives  the  leper — i.  e.,  from  this  planet.  All  the  Mission  enter- 
prizes — and  may  God  multiply  and  greatly  bless  them — all 
the  Mission  enterprises  from  St.  Paul  to  St.  Columba  and 
from  Cyril  and  Methodius  to  Carey  and  Judson  and  Patton 
will  not  touch  to  change  the  present  constitution  of  this  evil 
world.  Nothing  can  be  done  outside  of  individual  conver- 
sions; the  evangelization  of  the  nations  which  has  been  done 
again  and  again ;  and  the  gathering  of  the  elect,  or,  as  St. 
James  puts  it,  "the  taking  out  of  a  people  for  His  name." 
The  world  and  an  apostate  ritualizing  Christendom  will 
wax  worse  and  worse  until  the  Lord  himself  shall  come  and 
bring  in  His  Kingdom. 

Why  do  we  think  so? 

i.  Because  of  the  declared  purpose  of  God.  "God  hath 
visited  the  nations  to  take  out  of  them  a  people  for  His 
Name.  Aftcrzvard  He  will  return  and  build  again  the  ta- 
bernacle of  David  which  is  fallen  down  and  set  it  up."  The 
present  dispensation  therefore,  is  not  one  of  universality 
but  of  election.  It  forms  a  parenthesis  in  history — a  period 
of  a  gathering  which  is  special.  And  with  this  view  per- 
fectly agree  those  words  of  St.  Paul  in  Romans  IX.  "And 
that  He  might  make  known  the  riches  of  His  glory  upon  the 
vessels  of  mercy  which  He  had  afore  prepared  unto  glory 
even  us  whom  He  hath  called  not  only  from  amongst  the 
Jews  but  also  from  amongst  the  nations."  Calling  a  people 
out  of  the  world  is  not  converting  the  world ;  but  such  a 
calling  is  God's  present  and  acknowledged  purpose. 

2.  The  intimations  of  our  Blessed  Lord  and  His  apostles. 
His  Church  is  left  a  little  flock  like  sheep  among  wolves. 
Iniquity  shall  abound.  The  love  of  many  shall  wax  cold. 
Perilous  times  shall  come.  In  all  the  apostolic  writings  there 
is  not  a  single  text  which  goes  to  encourage  the  thought  that 
the  world  will  ever  be  converted  by  a  human  instrumentality 
— i.  e.,  by  the  Church.  The  Lord  Himself  must  come.  He 
who  created  must  restore. 

3.  All  Figures  go  to  show  it :  Daniel's  Image  for  exam- 
ple. From  head  to  foot — gold,  silver,  brass,  iron,  miry 
clay — each  metal  decreases  in  specific  gravity  and  weight 
from  gold  19.5  to  clay  but  i1/?.    A  supernatural  stone  un- 


354  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

quarried  by  a  human  hand  smites  its  toes  and  the  whole 
top-heavy  business  falls  into  ruin. 

Take  the  seven  parables  of  Matt.  XIII. 

In  the  first  parable — that  of  the  sower;  instead  of  the 
sowing  going  on  until  the  whole  earth  presents  the  glorious 
spectacle  of  one  vast  field  of  wheat,  we  find  seed  falling  by 
the  way  side,  seed  falling  on  the  rock,  seed  falling  among 
thorns ;  but  one-fourth  falls  upon  good  ground  and,  of  that 
diminished  quantity  still  less  brings  forth  one  hundred  fold. 

In  the  next  parable — that  of  the  tares;  we  are  plainly 
told  that  there  will  be  no  millennium  before  the  harvest. 
Wheat  and  tares  must  grow  together  until  "the  Son  of  man 
shall  send  forth  his  mighty  angels  and  they  shall  gather  out 
of  His  kingdom  all  things  that  offend  and  them  that  do  in- 
iquity." 

In  the  third  parable — the  Mustard  Seed;  the  external 
Church  is  likened  to  a  tree  greater  than  all  herbs — an 
overshadowing  visible  organization  in  the  branches  of  which 
are  lodged  those  very  fowls,  the  unclean  birds,  which  in  the 
first  parable  stole  away  the  sowing. 

In  the  fourth  parable  the  woman,  the  faithless  bride,  takes 
leaven — heresy,  corruption — and  mingles  it  with  the  three 
measures  of  pure  gospel  meal,  that  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Trinity;  Three  Persons  absolutely  supreme  in  salva- 
tion— until  the  whole  is  leavened. 

In  the  fifth  parable,  the  Church  spiritual,  invisible,  is 
represented  as  a  treasure  hid  in  a  field;  not  as  an  assembly 
coextensive  with  the  world  but  as  concealed,  unknown  amid 
its  social  circles — unrecognized  beneath  its  blinding  show. 
"The  world  knoweth  us  not  because  it  knew  Him  not." 

In  the  sixth  parable  the  same  idea  is  intensified.  Christ 
when  He  comes  for  the  Church  comes  seeking  carefully. 
The  Pearl  which  cost  so  great  a  price  is  scarcely  to  be 
distinguished  among  the  peoples,  even  by  her  Lord.  "When 
the  Son  of  man  cometh  shall  He  find  faith  on  the  earth?" 

In  the  seventh  and  last  parable,  the  Net  at  the  end  is 
drawn  ashore.  Good  and  bad  fish  are  found  therein  in- 
discriminately, the  good  are  gathered  into  vessels  and  the 
bad  are  cast  away. 

Our  Saviour's  commentary  on  it  all  is  this :     "Look  at 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  355 

the  days  of  Noah  and  the  days  of  Lot.    They  are  a  picture 
of  the  end  of  this  age." 

4.  The  predicted  rise  of  Antichrist  shows  the  necessity 
of  a  stronger  than  any  mortal  arm  or  agency  to  interpose 
and  conquer  and  destroy  him.  "Then  shall  that  wicked  one 
be  revealed." — Ho  Anomos,  it  is  a  person — "Whom  the 
LORD  shall  consume  with  the  spirit  of  His  mouth  and 
destroy  with  the  brightness  of  His  coming." 

5.  There  can  be  no  millennium — and  1,000  years  of  calm 
unagitated  blessedness  and  rest  are  promised — No  such 
millennium  in  a  world  of  thorns  and  thistles,  of  earthquakes 
and  volcanoes,  of  a  wild  animal  creation  preying  on  itself 
and  subject  to  vanity  and  suffering;  of  pains  and  sickness 
and  cries — a  millennium  of  graveyards  in  which  His  saints 
shall  sleep  through  all  the  blessedness,  while  Christ  is  absent. 
What  a  millennium  were  that? 

6.  The  supremacy  of  Satan  who,  though  fallen,  is  still  in 
the  upper  air — the  god  of  this  world  and  ruling  mightily  its 
course  and  kingdoms,  requires  the  very  presence  and  the 
power  of  Christ  to  cast  him  down  into  the  bottomless  pit 
until  the  thousand  years  are  finished. 

7.  The  Word  of  God  says  there  shall  be  two  distinct  and 
literal  resurrections,  one  of  the  just  and  the  other,  one 
thousand  years  later,  of  the  unjust.  It  is  during  that  1,000 
years  after  the  resurrection  of  the  saints  that  the  Millen- 
nium comes  in. 

8.  The  Church  at  present  is  represented  as  a  bride  who 
is  waiting  for  her  absent  Lover  and  Husband.  She  is 
told  to  watch  that,  at  His  coming  she  may  open  immediately. 
How  can  she  watch  if  anything  must  intervene  before  He 
comes  ? 

9.  Christ  is  to  come  as  King  and  sit  upon  the  throne 
of  David.  His  first  coming  was  literal  and  was  pretold 
down  to  the  smallest  details — even  to  His  riding  on  an  ass 
and  the  casting  of  lots  for  His  vesture.  The  predictions 
with  regard  to  his  second  coming  are  just  as  distinct  and 
just  as  literal.  The  Jews  of  the  old  dispensation  could  not 
see  the  details  of  His  first  coming  and  many  cannot  see  the 
details  of  His  second  coming  now.  But  they  are  quite  as 
patent.  He  is  to  come  the  same  Jesus  in  like  manner  as  He 
went  away.    His  feet  shall  stand  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives, 


356  THE   DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

He  shall  yet  succeed  in  Person  where  once  He  seemed  to 
fail.  His  sufferings  shall  have  full  compensation,,  in  His 
glories,  on  the  very  spot  where  he  suffered.  God's  oath 
to  David  will  be  literally  and  in  the  flesh  fulfilled :  "Of  the 
fruit  of  thy  body  will  I  set  upon  thy  throne" — not  only  upon 
My  throne,  at  My  right  hand,  but  on  thy  throne.  "On  Zion 
will  I  make  the  horn  of  David  to  bud;  I  have  ordained  a 
lamp — an  actual  manifested  glory  for  Mine  Anointed." 

Christ  is  to  come  as  "King  of  the  Jews."  The  inscrip- 
tion in  the  three  languages  which  He  consecrated  on  the 
cross,  and  which  are  from  that  time  the  basis  of  every  com- 
plete education,  will  be  blazoned  forth,  Jesus  Nazarcnus  Rex 
Judacorum,  if  not  in  letters,  in  infinite  splendors  and  cor- 
ruscations  of  light.  "He  shall  have  dominion  also  from 
sea  to  sea" — over  the  literal  and  the  material — "and  from 
the  river  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

"Arabia's   desert  ranger 

To  Christ  shall  bow  the  knee, 

The  Ethiopian  stranger 

His  glory  come  to  see, 

For  He  shall  have  dominion 

O'er  river,  sea  and  shore, 

Far  as  the  eagle's  pinion 

Or   dove's   light   wing   can   soar." 

THE  RETURN  AND  GLORY  OF  ISRAEL. 

But  if  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  the  same  Jesus,  is  to  return 
and  have  a  kingdom,  and  if  He  is  to  return  as  king  of  the 
Jews  and  have  his  seat  and  throne  on  Mt.  Zion,  then  the 
Jews  must  return  and  be  there  in  their  own  land  for  Him 
to  rule  over  them ;  and  not  only  the  Jews,  i.  e.,  Judah  and 
Benjamin,  but  all  Israel  including  the  ten  other  lost  tribes— 
the  tribes  who  did  not  literally  crucify  Christ;  the  tribes 
that  have  never  yet  been  brought  back  from  captivity  and 
that  have  had  no  second  dispersion. 

The  twelve  tribes  must  return  to  Palestine.  The  pro- 
mises made  to  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  must  be  literally 
and  exactly  fulfilled.  If  not — if  the  land  is  not  to  be 
given  to  the  children  of  Abraham  for  a  rescued  and  perman- 
ent possession — if   the   promises   of   God   concerning   the 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  357 

fleshly  seed  of  Abraham  are  not  to  be  fulfilled,  what  becomes 
of  His  promises  to  His  spiritual  seed,  the  Church,  the  in- 
dividual believer,  that  He  will  not  leave  nor  forsake — that 
He  will  bring  those  who  trust  Him  to  glory?  If  I  could 
believe  that  God  could  so  falsify  His  own  word  as  to  for- 
sake his  earthly  people  whom  He  foreknew,  it  would  shatter 
my  faith  in  the  preservation  of  the  saints  and  the  "restoring 
of  their  back-slidings,"  to  fragments. 

The  spiritual  is  built  upon  the  material :  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord;  If  My  covenant  be  not  with  day  and  night,  and  if  I 
have  not  appointed  the  ordinances  of  heaven  and  earth ; 
then  will  I  cast  away  the  seed  of  Jacob  and  of  David  my 
servant  so  that  I  will  not  take  any  of  his  seed  to  be  rulers 
over  the  seed  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob ;  for  I  will 
cause  their  captivity  to  return  and  have  mercy  upon  them." 

The  twelve  tribes  are  to  return.  They  are  all  to  return 
and  they  are  to  return  in  two  portions :  "Considerest  thou 
not  what  this  people  have  spoken,  saying,  The  tzvo  families 
which  the  Lord  hath  chosen,  He  hath  even  cast  them  off? 
Thus  they  have  despised  My  people,  that  they  should  be 
no  more  a  nation  before  them."  The  Lord  declares  that,  as 
He  has  scattered  Israel  and  sown  the  tribes  among  the  na- 
tions, He  will  gather  them  again  in  a  resurrection  which 
is  compared  in  Ezekiel  to  nothing  less  than  that  of  dry 
bones  from  the  dead.  At  that  time  "the  stick  of  Joseph  shall 
be  joined  with  the  stick  of  Judah  and  they  shall  be  one  stick 
and  I  will  make  them  one  nation  upon  the  mountains  of 
Israel  and  one  king  shall  be  to  them  all."     Ezek.  XXXVII. 

In  Isa.  XI  the  Lord  declares  that  He  will  set  His  hand 
a  second  time  to  recover  His  people  from  all  lands  and  even 
from  the  islands  of  the  sea,  and  that  then  "the  envy  of 
Ephraim  shall  depart ;  Ephraim  shall  not  envy  Judah  and 
Judah  shall  not  vex  Ephraim." 

Palestine — "Thy  land  Immanuel !" — the  keystone  of  three 
continents  is  the  future  Centre,  Hope  and  Glory  of  the 
world.  The  very  configuration  and  adaptedness  of  that 
country  in  its  high  lands  and  its  low  lands  shows  it.  From 
Beersheba  to  Mount  Hermon  and  from  Jericho  to  Mount 
Carmel  every  product  of  the  earth,  from  Arctic  latitudes 
to  the  torridness  of  the  Equator,  is  capable  of  being  found 
there.  The  Dead  Sea  is  1300  feet  below  the  level  of  the 


358  THE   DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE. 

Mediterranean.  Think  what  a  ship  canal  through  Jerusalem 
and  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Jordan  would  mean.  Think 
how  such  a  channel,  wrought  in  one  instant  by  a  convulsion 
of  nature,  and  the  splitting  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  in  two — 
"the  removal  of  half  the  mountain  to  the  south"  (ZechXIV: 
4) — would  change  Jerusalem  into  a  seaport  at  once  and  make 
her  at  once  the  Metropolis  of  the  nations !  How  waters 
deepening  from  the  "ankles"  to  "waters  to  swim  in,"  a  river 
that  could  not  be  passed  over,  might  change  the  very  Dead 
Sea  into  freshness  so  that  fishers  might  stand  upon  it  from 
Engedi  even  unto  En-eglaim,  so  that  ships  might  pass  down 
through  the  valley  of  Edom  into  the  gulf  of  Akabah  and 
the  Red  Sea  at  Ezion-Geber. 

The  twelve  tribes  are  to  go  back  to  their  land  and  Christ 
the  Lord  of  hosts  is  to  "reign  in  Mount  Zion  and  in  Jeru- 
salem and  before  His  ancient  people  gloriously." 

1.  The  Bible  says  so.  "Unto  which  promise,"  says  St. 
Paul,  "our  twelve  tribes" — not  two  only  but  the  whole 
twelve— for,  by  faith,  he  sees  them  although  hidden— "hope 
to  come." 

2.  The  twelve  tribes  are  everywhere,  in  both  the  Testa- 
ments, kept  perfectly  distinct,  Ephraim  is  never  merged 
with  the  Jew,  nor  yet  with  Issachar. 

8.  St.  James  in  his  Epistle  "writes  to  the  twelve  tribes 
which  are  scattered  abroad."  They  were  looked  at  then 
as  distinct;  not  merged  with  the  Jew,  in  this  dispensation, 
nor  to  be. 

4.  In  Rev.  VII,  the  tribes  are  mentioned  as  sealed.  It  is  a 
future  sealing  in  view  of  the  great  tribulation.  In  it,  all 
but  Dan,  for  whose  omission  there  is  a  reason,  are  cata- 
logued by  name. —  "Reuben,  Assher,  Naphtali,"  &c. 

5.  On  the  twelve  gates  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  Rev. 
21:12  appear  "the  names  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  the 
children  of  Israel." 

6.  In  two  different  Gospels  our  Saviour  promises  the 
apostles  that  they  shall  "sit  on  twelve  thrones  judging  the 
12  tribes  of  Israel". 

7.  In  Ezek.  48,  where  the  future  distribution  of  the  Land 
of  Palestine  among  the  tribes  is  described,  all  are  included, 
but  the  arrangement  is  entirely  different  from  the  old 
arrangement  under  Joshua.    Dan  is  put  first.    Issachar  who 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  359 

used  to  be  at  the  north  is  put,  far  away  below  Judah,  to  the 
south.  Reuben  is  moved  from  the  south-east  to  the  other 
side  of  Jordan  and  to  the  north.  And  Gad  who  used  to 
possess  Bashan  is  put  far  down  toward  the  Red  Sea. 

8.  In  the  centre  of  all,  in  the  portion  of  the  Levites  and 
the  Prince,  is  Christ  enthroned. 


THEN   COMETH   THE  END 


A  description  of  the  Millennium  or  thousand  years  of  a 
regenerated  earth,  a  Paradise  regained,  falls  not  within 
the  limit  of  our  present  purpose.  "The  wolf  and  the  lamb 
shall  feed  together  and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the 
bullock:  and  dust  shall  be  the  serpent's  meat.  They  shall 
not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  My  holv  mountain,  saith  the 
Lord." 

"O  scenes  surpassing  fable  and  yet  true!" 

The  end  of  the  1,000  years  is  Eternity.  Time  ends  where 
time  began.  "Then  shall  the  Son  deliver  up  the  kingdom 
unto  God  even  the  Father,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all". 


One  Reflection  shall  close  this  part  of  the  theme. 

The  things  of  which  we  have  spoken  indicate  the  place 
of  reason  and  emphasize  the  all-importance  of  faith. 

Of  course  there  is  reason.  The  Bible  is  not  addressed  to 
idiots  or  brutes.  Of  course  there  is  reason,  but  what  is 
reason's  place?  Is  it  to  dictate  or  to  receive?  Is  it  to  dis- 
cuss and  criticise  or  to  listen?  Reason's  function  is  not  to 
make  men  as  gods,  placing  themselves  equal  to  God.  Reason 
is  but  a  creature.  What  is  a  creature  but  a  thing  dependent. 
an  empty  vessel  till  filled  from  above?  What  do  I  know 
about  God's  things  until  God  tells  me ;  am  I  then  to  discuss 
them  with  God?  Reason's  highest  function  is  to  receive  the 
highest  kind  of  testimony.  There  is  nothing  higher  for 
reason  than  "Thus  saith  the  Lord" ;  and  when  God  speaks 
Reason's  "If"  is  blasphemy. 

That  emphasizes  the  necessity  of  Faith,  that  sixth  and 
supernatural  sense  which  transcends  all  the  other  senses. 
By  faith  we  understand  creation  instant,  absolute,  perfect, 
out  of  nothing — out  of  awful  inconceivable  nothing.     By 


360  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

faith  we  apprehend  the  facts  and  beings  of  a  universe  as  yet 
unveiled.  By  faith  we  lay  hold  for  salvation  on  One  who 
is  able  and  willing,  but  "Whom  having  not  seen  we  love." 
Some  people  tell  us  that  "seeing  is  believing,"  but  David 
"believed  to  see."  He  just  let  reasoning  go  and  risked  it 
blindly  on  God. 


PART  II. 
The  Church  and  Judas. 

The  intensest  interest  of  all  centres  in  a  love-story.  The 
Bible,  the  greatest  of  Love-Stories,  pictures  to  us  a  Bride- 
groom seeking  after  a  bride.  It  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  the 
Divine  Eliezer  bringing  Rebekah  to  Isaac.  The  first  then, 
the  most  momentous  of  questions  is  this :  "Wilt  thou  go 
with  this  man?"  The  sweetest  and  most  inclusive  response: 
"I  will  go." 

This  figure  of  the  Bridegroom  and  the  Bride  runs 
through  the  Scripture  from  cover  to  cover.  At  every  turn 
we  meet  it  whether  it  be  in  Boaz  the  Kinsman-Redeemer  and 
Ruth,  or  in  the  sweet  strophes  and  antistrophes  of  Solo- 
mon's Song;  or  in  the  restored  wife  of  Hosea  crying 
"ISHI,"  my  Husband !  or  in  the  Gospels  where  the  children 
of  the  bride-chamber  rejoice  because  the  Bridegroom  is  with 
them ;  or  in  the  Epistles  where  husbands  are  exhorted  to 
love  their  wives,  after  the  supremest  example,  "as  Christ 
loved  the  Church"  ;  or  finally  at  the  end  of  St.  John's  Revela- 
tion where  the  Bride  the  Lamb's  wife  is  in  vision  beheld, 
"descending  out  of  heaven  from  God,  having  the  glory  of 
God  and  adorned  as  a  bride  for  her  husband." 

TWO  ADAMS. 

The  Bible  thus  pictures  two  Adams.  One  whose  wife 
fell  and  he  with  her ;  the  Other  who  stood  and  restores  His 
wife  who  has  fallen.  The  Bible  pictures  two  Adams ;  colos- 
sal figures  they  are  who  fill  all  the  landscapes  of  time.  Our 
whole  race ;  headed  up  in  one  or  the  Other,  is  found  either 
hid  in  their  shadows,  or  in  their  persons  absorbed.  "As 
in  Adam  all  his  die,  even  so  in  Christ  all  His  are  made 
alive." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  361 

The  second  Adam  is  the  ''seed  of  the  woman,"  not  of  the 
man.  Man  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  seed  of  the 
woman   means   Incarnation. 

There  are  four  ways  and  only  four  ways,  says  St.  Ans-elm 
in  Cur  Dcus  Homo,  in  which  man  can  come  into  this  world. 
One  is  by  immediate  creation  as  Adam.  Another  is  by 
natural  generation  as  is  the  case  with  the  mass  of  man- 
kind. A  third  way  is  that  a  woman  should  be  taken  directly 
from  the  side  of  the  man,  as  was  Eve.  The  fourth  and  last 
way  is  that  a  man  should  be  taken  directly  from  woman. 
This  last  way,  the  way  of  completeness,  God  had  reserved 
for  Himself,  till  the  fulness  of  time:  "The  Lord  hath 
created  a  new  thing  in  the  earth.  Behold  I  give  you  a  sign : 
a  Virgin  shall  conceive  and  bear  a  Son  and  shall  call  His 
name  Immanuel."  The  seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the 
serpent's  head ;  shall  meet  and  neutralize  the  fall.  That 
means 

ATONEMENT. 

Sinful  man  must  have  a  righteousness:  "This  do  and 
live."  Heaven  is  conditioned  on  perfect  obedience.  It  is 
not  only  a  reward  but  an  earning:  for  God  who  is  both 
wise  and  just  gives  nothing  anywhere  without  a  reason. 
Man,  to  enter  heaven,  must  earn  heaven  and  if  he  cannot 
earn  it  himself  it  must  be  earned  for  him  by  Another. 
Heaven  to  us  is,  no  doubt,  a  free  gift,  but  it  is  a  gift  which 
has  value ;  which  has  cost  something  and  some  one  has 
earned  it.  I  may,  instantly  on  hearing  a  will  read  inherit  a 
fortune — but  the  fortune  itself — is  the  result  of  work,  of 
care,  of  achievement  on  the  part  of  another. 

Man  must  have  a  righteousness — a  perfect  record — an 
obedience  to  law  brought  in,  but  that  righteousness  must 
also  be  based  on  a  full  expiation.  Set  Adam  back  in 
Eden  and  give  him  a  righteousness,  what  becomes  of  the 
sin  which  he  has  already  committed?  There  must  be  a 
shedding  of  Blood,  for  without  Blood  for  a  sinner  there  is 
no  remission.  "The  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  Blood :  and 
I  have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar  to  make  an  atonement 
for  your  souls :  for  it  is  the  Blood  that  maketh  an  atonement 
for  the  soul." 

Man  must  have  an  atonement,  i.  e.,  a  Sacrifice.    The  first 


362  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

necessity  of  all   for  you  and   for  me  is  an  answer  to  the 
question,  "How  can  God  be  just  and  justify  the  guilty?" 

There  must  be  a  Sacrifice.  This  was  typed  in  Eden's 
lamb.  God  clothed  Adam  and  Eve  with  the  lamb's  fleece ; 
but  that  fleece  had  first  been  dyed  in  the  blood  of  its  owner, 
the  victim.  How  beautiful  the  Antitype  of  Golgotha.  Jesus 
was  all  His  lifetime,  as  the  old  puritans  put  it,  "gathering 
and  beating  out  the  golden  threads  with  which  to  weave  the 
seamless  Robe  of  an  imputed  righteousness,  and,  in  His 
death  He  dipped  that  Robe  in  the  vermillion  of  His  blood." 

"Calvary's  wonders  let  us  trace 
Justice  magnified  in  grace 
Mark  those  purple  streams  and  say 
There  my  sins  were  washed  away." 

The  sacrifice  at  Eden's  gate  found  clearer  type  in  Abram's 
name  and  Isaac's  substitute.  Reading  the  Hebrew  text 
awhile  ago  I  said  to  myself:  What  is  the  real  distinction 
between  "Abram"  and  "Abraham."  Abram  is  loosely  trans- 
lated "high  father."  That  seems  to  signify  little.  I  looked 
more  closely.  "Ab"  is  in  the  construct  state.  It  is  not 
"high  father"  but  "father  of  ram;"  of  altitude.  Ah-raham 
means  father  of  breadth.  Altitude  that  is  the  perpendicular. 
Breadth  that  is  the  horizontal.  First  the  perpendicular  of 
justice ;  then  on  it  the  transverse  beam  of  all  embracing 
love.  So  in  his  very  names  and  in  the  change  of  name 
Abraham  stands  for  the  cross  and  proclaims  the  Atone- 
ment. 

"Mercy  and  truth  unite 

O'  tis  a  wondrous  sight 

All  sights  above ; 

Jesus  the  curse  sustains. 

Guilt's  bitter  cup  He  drains 

Nothing  for  us  remains, 

Nothing  but  love." 

"Your  father  Abraham  saw  My  day,"  said  Jesus,  "and 
he  rejoiced  in  it  and  was  glad."  The  cross,  marked  in 
his  very  name,  was  exemplified  in  a  Substitute.  In  the 
mount  of  God  it  was  seen  how  God  could  provide  a  proxy 
for  the   sinner,   Isaac,  bound   upon   the   wood;   when   the 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  363 

Ram  caught  in  the  thicket  was  put  in  his  place  and  Isaac 
forever  went  free.  Abraham  saw  this;  he  looked  down 
the  vista  of  ages  in  vision  and  saw  it.  He  saw  it  as  plainly 
as  you  or  I  ever  saw  it.  He  realized  what  we  realize,  that 
salvation  is  "not  without  blood''  and  that  blood  covers  ALL 
in  it:  that  there  is  not,  nor  can  there  be  a  shred,  a  scintilla, 
an  atom  of  merit,  or  of  saving  power  outside  of  the  Blood 
anywhere  in  the  universe :  that  Blood,  the  Blood  of  Jesus 
Christ — that  Blood  ALONE,  in  awful,  naked  solitary 
grandeur,  is  the  sinner's  single  but  his  all  effectual  plea. 
That  therefore,  faith  in  that  Blood ;  a  simple  act  of  confi- 
dence carries  him  who  trusts  it,  from  condemnation  to  No 
condemnation — from  death  into  a  life  that  lasts  forever. 

"Upon  a  life  I  did  not  live, 
Upon  a  death  I  did  not  die ; 
Another's  death,  Another's  life, 
I  risk  my  soul  eternally." 

"Christ  loved  us  and  gave  Himself  for  us" ;  that  brings 
us  to 

THE  CHURCH    REDEEMED. 

The  Church  is  founded  on  the  Deity  of  Christ.  The  person 
of  Christ,  God-man  in  two  natures,  is  the  Rock  of  Ages,  the 
Rock  on  which  the  Church  is  built.  This  was  the  crowning 
glory  of  St.  Peter's  confession.  Not  Peter  who  confessed 
the  Rock,  but  the  Rock  whom  Peter  confessed — the  eternal, 
immutable  statement  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God !" 

The  Church  is  the  creature  of  Christ.  She  is  taken  from 
the  wound  in  Christ's  side  when  He  was  asleep  in  death  on 
the  cross,  as  Eve  was  taken  in  his  sleep  from  Adam.  The 
Church  is  built  upon  the  foundation  of  Apostles  and  New 
Testament  preachers  or  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  Himself 
being  the  chief  corner-stone. 

The  Church  includes  Old  Testament  believers:  Rom. 
111:25  distinctly  says  so.  St.  Stephen  speaks  of  "the 
Church  in  the  wilderness."  For  this  reason  the  Church  of 
the  old  Testament  is  spoken  of  as  the  Bride  because  while 
not  having  the  same  fulness  of  the  Spirit  she  was  yet  one 
with  us  now  in  new  birth  and  election. 


364  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

The  word  Church  however  is,  in  the  New  Testament, 
especially  employed  to  designate  the  Assembly  of  the  called 
in  this  dispensation:  a  manifest,  organic  body  including 
an  invisible  election. 

THE   CHURCH'S    HISTORY. 

The  history  of  this  organic  body  is  given  in  the  seven 
epistles  to  the  seven  Churches  in  the  Revelation.  These 
Churches  represent,  no  doubt,  the  entire  present  dispensa- 
tion looked  at  in  its  breadth  or  survey ;  and  in  its  progress. 

In  its  Breadth:  for  all  the  phases  of  the  Christian  life  are 
exhibited,  at  the  same  time  and  in  every  age,  by  the  seven 
phases,  which  like  the  changes  of  the  kaleidoscope,  give  us 
every  cast  of  color ;  in  the  love  of  Ephesus,  the  patience  of 
Smyrna,  the  conceit  of  Pergamos,  the  idolatry  of  Thyatira, 
the  worldliness  of  Sardis,  the  missionary  zeal  of  Philadel- 
phia and  the  luke-warmness  of  Laodicea.  Looked  at  in 
their  breadth  and  as  all  existing  at  one  time,  a  circle  of 
candlesticks,  these  churches  give  us,  in  a  heterogeneous 
mixture,  just  what  we  have  and  see  about  us  to-day. 

But,  looked  at  in  their  Length:  a  row  of  candlesticks  in 
succession  and  in  their  prophetic  progress,  these  churches 
give  us,  phase  after  phase;  period  after  period  adown  the 
centuries,  to  the  very  coming  of  the  Lord ;  and 

I.  We  have  Ephesus:  the  Apostolic  age:  the  age  of  "first 
love."  Ephesus  means  "devotedness,"  "longing  desire."  It 
is  the  age  of  St.  John  but  also  the  age  of  Diotrephes— of 
declension  from  that  first  love. 

II.  Smyrna:  the  age  of  the  Martyrs.  Smyrna  means 
"myrrh,"  gum  crushed  into  incense.  It  is  the  period  of  the 
ten  persecutions  beginning  with  Nero  and  -  ending  with 
Diocletian ;  the  age  of  the  catacombs  when  Christians  were 
wrapped  in  skins  of  wild  beasts  and  in  blankets  soaked 
in  oil  and  burned  for  candles  on  the  corners,  to  light  up  the 
streets  of  Rome.  This  is  the  age  of  Perpetua  and  Blandina 
and  Polycarp. 

III.  Pergamos:  Pergamos  means  "high  tower."  The 
imperial  decree  against  the  Christians  has  been  reversed. 
Constantine  has  replaced  the  eagle  on  his  royal  standards, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  365 

bv  the  cross.  The  Church  comes  up  from  the  catacombs, 
from  a  grave,  and,  all  at  once,  is  seated  on  a  throne.  The 
chief  presbyter  in  Rome,  become  a  Bishop,  assumes  the 
title  of  Pontifex  Maximus  ("he  who  bridges  the  chasm 
between  man  and  God"),  and  pagan  rites,  vestments,  in- 
cense and  statues  are  introduced  into  the  Church.  The 
statue  of  Jupiter  becomes  that  of  St.  Peter  and  the  wor- 
ship of  Isis  gives  way  to  that  of  Mary,  in  blasphemy  styled 
Panagia,  "All  Holy"  the  sinless  by  nature:  the  "Mother  of 
God." 

IV.  Thyatira:  The  Papal  Church:  the  woman  Jezebel  has 
now  completed  her  work  of  "mixing  leaven  with  three 
measures  of  pure  Gospel  meal."  Mariolatry  is  followed  by 
the  Mass,  and  that  by  the  abominable  cesspool  of  auricular 
confession.  Celibacy  is  enforced  on  the  priesthood  and  im- 
morality, as  in  the  days  of  the  Medicis  and  the  Borgias, 
sweeps  under  its  black  and  foul  waters  all  decency  of 
thought  and  conduct.  Rome  Papal  is  unspeakably  worse 
than  Rome  Pagan. 

V.  Sardis:  the  Reformation ;  the  period  of  the  establish- 
ment of  State  Churches  with  their  Erastianism  and  their  ex- 
ternal profession.  These  are  the  days  of  Moderatism :  of 
the  hunting  parson ;  of  reception  to  the  communion  as  a 
condition  of  citizenship  and  of  good  social  standing.  A 
minoritv  however — a  "few  names"  in  comparison  with  the 
great  National  majority,  "even  in  Sardis,  walk  with  Christ 
in  white." 

VI.  PhiladclpJiia:  "an  open  door."  It  is  the  era  of  re- 
vival— of  Whitfield,  of  Wesley,  of  Edwards:  the  era  of 
brotherly  love :  of  Evangelical  union :  of  Rrainerd,  of  Henry 
Martyn,  of  the  American  Board — of  the  Scudders,  of 
Livingston  and  of  Heber;  of  the  great  missionary  enter- 
prizes  of  the  XlXth  century. 

VII.  Laodicca:  Reaction.  Enthusiasm  sickens  into  sen- 
timentality and  gives  way  to  luke-warmness.  The  Church 
was  never  so  arrogant:  never  so  certain  of  herself  as  now 
that  she  is  "rich  and  increased  in  goods  and  in  need  of 
nothing."  Then  Christ  spues  her  out  of  His  mouth.  All 
down  the  ages,  He  has  been  in  the  midst  of  His  Church 


366  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

however  backslidden  but  now  He  stands  outside  of  her 
knocking  for  the  last  time  for  a  re-entrance.  It  is  a  church 
of  ethics  not  Christ.  Laodicea  is  the  last  phase  of  the 
Church  in  this  dispensation.  That  ends  it.  Then  the  true 
Church,  the  Invisible  within  the  Outward,  is  caught  away  in 
secret  rapture  and  caught  up. 

"After  this  I  looked,  and  behold," 

"a  door  opened  in  heaven." 

The  Rapture  of  the  Church  is  the  point  of  departure 
from  Chapter  IV  for  the  subsequent  divisions  of  the  book 
of  Revelation.  These  divisions  include  Two  Great  Pano- 
ramas one  running  on  above  the  world,  and  the  other,  at 
the  same  time  below ;  and 

i.  The  Panorama  of  the  Church  in  heaven.  John  looks 
up  and  sees  a  door  opened  through  which  the  Church  in 
secret  rapture  undetected  by  the  eye  of  man  has  been  caught 
up.  He  glimpses  there  the  Elders,  24  in  number  repre- 
senting the  12  patriarchs  of  the  Old  Dispensation  and  the 
12  Apostles  of  the  New.  They  are  engaged  in  prostrate, 
entranced,  ineffable  worship.  They  are  permitted  to  behold 
the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  throne,  Ruler  of  the  world, 
and  about  to  inaugurate  His  administration  with  the  open- 
ing of  a  Book  sealed  with  seven  seals. 

After  this,  the  Church  appears  before  the  Bema  or 
tribunal  of  Christ,  not  to  be  sentenced,  but  to  receive  in  the 
person  of  each  individual,  his  own  reward.  Some  shall 
receive  crowns — Some  stars  differing,  one  star  from  another 
in  glory — Some  shall  be  awarded  to  shine  with  the  dim 
and  inconspicuous  brightness  of  the  firmament.  Every 
man  shall  receive  for  the  work  he  has  done  and  service 
rendered  in  his  earthly  life ;  done  not  for  salvation  but 
from  the  impulse  of  a  pure  and  grateful  devotion,  gold, 
silver,  precious  stones.  Some  shall  see  their  work  swept 
away  as  wood,  hay  and  stubble — too  much  of  indolence,  too 
much  of  vanity,  too  much  of  self  in  it.  "If  any  man's 
work  shall  be  burned  he  shall  suffer  loss,  but  he  himself  shall 
"be  saved,  yet  so  as  by  fire." 

And  yet  any  Salvation  is  glory ;  and  none  who  appear 
before  that  Bema  for  award  can  be  thrust  out  of  heaven 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  367 

again.  All  shall  rejoice  therefore,  even  they  who  have  been 
saved  yet  so  as  by  fire.  And  after  that,  the  great  Wedding 
March  will  be  sounded,  the  Bride's  Nuptials  solemnized, 
and  the  vast  white  robed  and  crowned  and  palm-bearing 
multitude  shall  crowd  the  palace  halls  and  sit  down  at  the 
Marriage  Supper  of  the  Lamb.  The  concluding  scenes  of 
this  panorama  are :  the  Church  coming  forth  and  down  from 
heaven  in  the  retinue  of  the  Lamb,  the  "KING  OF  KINGS 
AND  LORD  OF  LORDS,"  following  him  on  white  horses : 
then  the  destruction  of  Antichrist  and  the  setting  up  on 
Mount  Zion  of  the  Millennial  Kingdom. 

2.  While  these  Events  transpire  in  heaven,  the  Second 
Panorama  is  unrolled  on  Earth. 

The  Church  having  been  taken  away,  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
taken  away,  i.  e.,  the  Holy  Ghost  an  indwelling  Presence  as 
given  at  Pentecost.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  He  that  now  letteth" 
or  holds  in  check ;  and  when  the  check  is  removed  the 
world  will  be  filled  with  a  tide  of  ungodliness.  Upon  this 
tide  rises  and  rides  in  the  Antichrist,  "He  who  opposeth 
and  exalteth  himself  above  all  that  is  called  God  or  wor- 
shipped." This  Antichrist — a  man  energized  of  Satan,  for 
"the  dragon  gives  him  his  power  and  seat  and  great  au- 
thority"— this  Antichrist  gains  the  consent  of  all  the  kings 
of  the  earth  that  he  should  be  their  King  of  kings :  the 
great  antitypal  Caesar,  Czar  or  Napoleon.  His  empire  is  a 
pyramid  as  wide  as  the  world  and  he  sits  on  its  apex. 

Meanwhile  the  Jews  have  returned,  but  in  unbelief,  to 
their  land  and  have  rebuilt  their  temple.  The  Antichrist 
makes  a  treaty  or  covenant  with  these  Jews  that  he  will 
not  molest  them.  The  covenant  is  to  last  7  years.  In  the 
midst  of  this  week  of  years,  or  after  three  years  and  a 
half — "time  and  two  times  and  half  a  time" — the  Anti- 
christ, absolute  autocrat  everywhere  else  save  in  Palestine, 
proclaims  himself  more  than  a  man.  He  styles  himself  "The 
God  of  forces"  in  whom  resides  the  spring  and  dynamo  of 
all  electricity,  gravitation,  radium  and  chemical  changes. 
To  prove  this  he  shows  miracles  and  lying  wonders  and 
"all  the  world  wonders  after  the  Beast."  He  exalts  him 
self,  in  other  words,  as  the  only,  the  exclusively  supreme; 
"so  that  he  as  God  sitteth  in  the  temple  of  God,  shewing 
himself  that  he  is  God." 


368  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Of  this  god,  the  Beast  of  Revelation  XIII  and  XVIII, 
there  is  set  up  an  Image.  The  Jews — at  least  a  pious 
remnant  of  the  Jews,  refuse  to  bow  down  to  this  image  or 
to  receive  the  mark  of  the  Beast.  The  Beast,  or  the  Anti- 
christ, on  this,  breaks  his  covenant,  and  the  remainder  of 
the  7  years,  i.  e.,  the  other  time  and  times  and  half  a 
time,  or  3^  years  or  42  months  or  1260  days,  is  filled  with 
the  awful  scenes  of  the  Great  Tribulation.  Then  the 
144,000  are  sealed. 

The  Tribulation  ends  with  the  open  and  sudden  descent 
of  the  Lord  and  His  white  robed  armies  from  heaven,  and 
the  casting  of  Antichrist  alive,  with  his  false  prophet  into 
the  lake  of  fire. 

The  mention  of  the  false  prophet  reminds  us  of 

JUDAS. 

There  is  something  very  significant  about  Judas  Iscariot. 
He  seems  to  have  been  the  only  one  of  the  apostles  who  was 
an  actual  Jew.  All  the  others  were  chosen  from  Galilee, 
save  Paul  who  was  of  Benjamin's  tribe.  Judas,  as  tradition 
informs  us,  was  born  in  an  obscure  town  of  Judea — a  town 
from  which  he  got  his  name  Iscariotes,  Iscariot. 

A  study  of  Judas  will  show  him  to  have  been,  from  the 
first,  a  marked  man.  He  was,  no  doubt  a  gentlemanly,  an 
insinuating  man ;  a  man  skilled  in  cloaking  his  aims  and 
his  resentments  under  a  fair  and  modest  exterior.  To  the 
last,  no  one  suspected  Judas,  not  even  John. 

Judas  was  a  great  financier.  He  was  the  "By  ends"  of 
the  Gospel.  He  loved  money.  Somehow  he  managed  to 
get  and  carry  and  control  the  bag.  The  Church  has  always 
suffered  from  such  men :  She  has,  from  the  first,  been  ruined 
by  money.  Every  apostacy,  every  heresy  will,  if  probed 
deep  enough,  be  found  to  have  its  evil  root  in  "the  love  of 
money."  If  a  man  is  not  for  Another,  for  God:  he  is  for 
himself,  for  gain,  i.  e.,  Mammon. 

That  was  Judas.  He  was  a- knave  under  sheepskin.  He 
was  untrue  from  the  start.  He  had  a  false  motive.  All  the 
other  disciples  followed  Christ  for  love.  As  Thomas  says: 
"Let  us  go  if  we  die  with  Him."  Judas  had  no  notion  of 
dying.     He  was  impressed  by  our  Lord's  miracles  and  by 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  3°9 

His  mighty  claims.  He  said  to  himself,  "Here  is  a  chance! 
This  is  a  tide  which  taken  with  the  flood  leads  on  to  fortune. 
If  I  cast  myself  in  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  I  shall  find  my- 
self first  in  His  Kingdom."  Judas  was  like  some  young  men 
who  argued  in  our  civil  war :  "The  North  is  sure  to  conquer, 
and  if  I  enlist  I  shall  be  a  great  man."  The  thought  was 
not:  "I  must  save  the  Republic;  I  will  die  for  my  country!" 
What  cared  such  a  man  for  his  country?  It  was  political 
preferment  he  looked  for,  when  prizes  of  place  and  of  office 
should  fall  to  victorious  privates  and  colonels  and  generals, 
after  the  war. 

Judas  followed  Christ  for  advantage;  for  what  he  thought 
he  could  get  out  of  Christ.  When  he  saw  that  Christ  was 
not  making  ground :  when  he  saw  that  he  himself  was  not 
making  ground  with  Christ :  that  he  was  not  being  admitted 
to  the  intimacy  of  Peter  and  James  and  John,  he  was  alien- 
ated more  and  more  until ;  mad,  he  betrayed  Christ. 

Judas  was  an  ambitious  man.  I  believe  he  was  at  the 
bottom  of  all  those  discussions  as  to  "who  shall  be  greatest." 
While  he  was  left  at  the  foot  of  the  mount  of  Transfigura- 
tion, and  Peter  and  James  and  John  were  up  there  with 
Jesus  above,  I  believe  that  Judas,  jealous  of  their  prefer- 
ment, started  the  discussion  as  to  who  should  be  the  first  and 
should  be  greatest ;  a  discussion  which  was  continued  as 
they  afterward  went  on  their  way.  The  discussion  is,  at 
all  events,  associated  in  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  with  the 
scene  of  the  Transfiguration.  It  was  to  rebuke  this  spirit 
that  our  Blessed  Lord  stooped  down  to  wash  the  feet  of 
His  disciples.  Judas,  while  Christ  was  washing  his  feet, 
was  mad  enough  to  betray  Him. 

Judas  was  a  cynic :  a  critical  man :  a  man  to  whom  noth- 
ing was  ever  quite  right  but  himself.  When  the  disciples 
murmured*  at  the  saying:  "Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  man  and  drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you,"  I 
believe  that  it  was  Judas  chiefly  who  murmured,  for  it  is 
said  at  once  in  that  very  connection:  "There  are  some  of 
you  who  believe  not.  For  Jesus  knew  from  the  beginning 
who  they  were  that  believed  not.  and  who  should  betray 
Him."  Again  it  is  added  immediately  after :  "Have  not  I 
chosen  you  twelve  and  one  of  you  is  a  devil?    He  spoke  of 

"John  VI  :61,  et  seq. 


370  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Judas  Iscariot  the  son  of  Simon :  for  he  it  was  that  should 
betray  Him,  being  one  of  the  twelve." 

The  captious,  scornful,  sneering  spirit  of  Judas  comes 
out  in  most  unlovely  expression,  when — speaking  of  the 
broken  Alabaster  box — he  objected:  "Why  was  not  this 
ointment  sold  for  three  hundred  pence  and  given  to  the 
poor?"  "This  he  said  not  because  he  cared  for  the  poor," 
nor  pitied  the  poor ;  for  Christ  Himself  was  poorest  of  the 
poor  and  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head,  but  "This  he  said 
because  he  was  a  thief  and  had  the  bag  and  bare  what  was 
therein  and  pilfered  from  it,  so  that,  many  a  time,  our 
Saviour   had   to  go   with   scanty   meals. 

Judas  was  a  critical  man :  the  highest  of  the  Higher 
Critics.  The  highest  because  his  criticism, — more  than 
any  man's  ever  did,  went  to  establish  the  very  thing  he 
sought  to  overthrow.  The  best,  the  greatest  human  tes- 
timony ever  given  to  the  moral  spotlessness  of  our  Blessed 
Lord,  His  ineffable  sinless  perfection,  is  that  of  Judas :  "I 
have  betrayed  the  innocent,  innocent.  Innocent  Blood!" 

Whitefield  was  once  asked  his  opinion  of  a  certain  man? 
His  reply  was :  "I  never  slept  with  him."  Judas  knew 
Christ  in  and  out.  By  day  and  by  night,  for  three  years  he 
ate,  drank,  walked,  talked,  lived,  slept  with  Him.  No  man 
ever  knew  Christ  so  well.  No  man  knows  you  like  the 
man  who  always  has  his  eye  upon  you,  judging  you.  "sizing 
you  up,"  as  we  say:  marking  your  very  minutest  mistakes. 
Judas  knew  Jesus  better  than  any  other  one  of  the  apostles 
knew  Him :  better  than  any  other  man  has  ever  known 
Him  after  the  flesh.  Not  even  His  mother  knew  the  per- 
fection of  Christ  as  did  Judas.  It  were  worth  while  to  make 
such  a  man  an  apostle,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  this ; 
that  in  no  other  possible  way  could  a  human  testimony  be 
gotten  that  would  equal  the  awful,  the  solemn,  the  most 
pathetic  confession :  "I  have  sinned  in  betraying  the  inno- 
cent  Blood !" 

The  aim  and  ambition  of  Judas  throws  light,  perhaps,  on 
his  choice.  He  was  not  chosen  to  be  an  apostle  because  he 
had  any  grace,  or  because  any  grace  or  spiritual  fitness 
would  ever  be  found  in  him.  An  external  choice  does  not 
always  rest  upon  this.  Judas  is  not  the  only  minister  who 
in  God's  holy  purpose,  has  been  elected  to  evangelize  or  fill 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  37* 

a  pulpit  who  yet  has  not  been  a  regenerate  man.  Judas 
chose  himself  so  to  say.  He  was  made  one  of  the  twelve, 
it  would  seem,  because  in  a  manner  our  Lord  could  not, 
humanly  speaking-,  avoid  it.  Judas,  like  Saul  the  son  of 
Kish,  was  probably  the  goodliest  person  in  his  surroundings. 
Among  all  who  enrolled  themselves  with  the  professed 
followers  of  Jesus  probably  there  was  no  one  so  intelligent, 
so  cultivated,  so  assuming  in  manner  as  he.  He  regarded 
himself  and  he  was  regarded  by  others  as  a  man  above  all 
for  the  place.  "Among  these  fishermen,''  he  argued,  "I 
am  easily  superior  and  ought  to  be  chief."  He  crowded  up 
to  the  front.  He  was  so  prominent  that  to  leave  him  out 
would  cause  surprise.  Judas  looked  to  be  chosen ;  he 
pressed  forward  with  a  suppressed  eagerness.  "Very  well 
...  .Be  it  so,"  said  our  Lord,.  . .  ."And  Judas  Iscariot." 

I  am  not  dogmatizing  here,  the  Lord  forbid.  I  give  but 
a  hint  of  what  has  seemed  to  me  to  illumine  a  mystery 
which,  beyond  man,  is  in  the  Lord's  keeping.  Only  it  is 
perfectly  clear  that  Judas  was  only  and  permissively  chosen 
to  office  and  not  to  salvation.  "Those  that  Thou  gavest  Me 
I  have  kept,"  says  our  Lord,  "and  none  of  them  is  lost :  But 
the  son  of  perdition  is  lost,  that  the  Scripture  might  be  ful- 
filled." 

Before  the  Beast  of  the  Revelation  with  his  mystic 
number  666,*  stands  another  beast  who  comes  up  out  of  the 
earth  and  exerciseth  all  the  power  of  the  first  beast  before 
him.  "And  he  doeth  great  wonders,  and  deceiveth  them 
that  dwell  on  the  earth  by  means  of  those  miracles  which 
he  had  power  to  do  in  the  sight  of  the  beast :  saying  to  them 
that  they  should  make  an  image  to  the  beast.  And  he  had 
power  to  give  life  unto  the  image  of  the  beast,  that  the 
image  of  the  beast  should  both  speak  and  cause  that  as  many 
as  would  not  worship  the  Image  of  the  beast  should  be 
killed." 

There  is  much  to  suggest  that  this  future  great  false 
prophet  will  be  Judas  Iscariot. 

i.  Because  he  is  a  man — a  false  prophet. 

2.  Because  he  comes  up  out  of  the  earth  where  he  has 
been  buried. 


*6,  one  short  of  7,  always  denotes  failure,  666  may  shadow  3 
fold  doom  and  final  failure. 


3/2  THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE. 

3.  Because  he  is  the  "Sou"  of  perdition.  Not  merely 
one  who  has  gone  iuto  perdition:  going  into  would  not 
make  him,  an  offspring,  a  son.  He  is  the  son  of  perdition 
because  he  comes  out  of  perdition.  Like  the  Antichrist  him- 
self ;  the  only  one  else  who  is  called  by  this  title,  he  comes 
up,  a  resuscitated  man  from  below,  let  loose  from  the  bot- 
tomless pit  for  a  purpose  and  season. 

4.  Judas  was  a  devil.  He  was  this  literally.  Not  only 
did  the  devil  possess  him ;  not  only  did  he  "put  it  into  the 
heart  of  Judas"  to  betray  our  Blessed  Lord,  but  "the  devil, 
after  the  sop,  entered  into  him.*'  i.  e.,  into  union  with  him — 
mingled  with  him  in  nature  so  that  he  became  a  man-devil, 
the  fittest  of  instruments  for  Satan's  purpose. 

5.  Judas  prophesied  while  here  on  earth.  He  wrought 
miracles.  Devils  were  subjected  unto  him.  Everything 
goes  to  show  that — the  fittest  of  all  human  instruments — 
coming  up  out  of  the  earth,  he  will  resume,  or  rather 
counterfeit  the  resumption,  of  his  apostolic  gifts  and  office. 

6.  The  false  prophet  of  Rev.  xiii :  13-1 5  has  the  horns, 
or  the  look  of  a  lamb,  but  the  voice  of  a  dragon.  How  ex- 
act a  picture  of  the  double-faced  Judas.  With  the  smile 
of  a  friend  he  kisses  his  Master,  then  turning  to  the  ene- 
mies of  that  Master  he  cries,  "This  is  he.  hold  him  fast!" 

Xever  apologize  for  Judas.  Never  try  to  soften  down 
his  works  or  character.  Xever  argue  that  he  had  a  good 
motive,  i.  e..  to  force  Christ's  hand  and.  by  a  premature 
betrayal  oblige  Him  to  assert  Himself  and  hasten  on  His 
kingdom. 

Judas  knew  and  saw  the  kingdom  to  be  spiritual.  His 
selfish  plans  were  blasted.  He  was  always  morally  the 
opposite  of  Christ  and  now  he  hated  Him.  He  criticized 
Him  because  he  hated  Him.  He  betrayed  Him  because 
he  hated  Him :  hated  Him  most  of  all  for  that  holiness 
which  yet  he  was  forced  to  confess.  It  was  a  hatred  worse 
than  that  of  a  devil  for  no  devil  had  ever  been  the  recipient 
of  such  love. 

The  doom  of  Judas  sheds  a  certain  light  upon  the  justice 
of  eternal  punishment.  Men  forget  in  arguing  about  this 
matter  that  the  sinner,  after  death,  does  not  remain  a 
stationary  being  but  goes  on  from  worse  to  worse.  Judas. 
when  he  comes  up  again  from  the  earth,  shows  that  his 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  373 

"repentance"'  was  nothing  more  than  fright  and  remorse — 
a  momentary  back-wave  of  his  onward  moving  and  enlarg- 
ing evil  nature.  He  goes  on  from  worse  to  worse.  Then 
his  punishment  must  follow  him.  A  man  punished  for 
theft  steals  again,  then  he  must  again  be  punished.  Judas 
after  2000  years  comes  up  from  the  pit  to  sin  more  boldly 
now  upon  the  public  platform  of  the  world.  He  joins  the 
Devil  and  the  Beast  to  form  an  awful  trinity.  Then  with 
them  and  "alive,"  he  must  be  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire. 

ST.    PAUL. 

The  contrast  to  Judas — the  one  who  takes  his  vacant 
place  is  St.  Paul.  Not  Matthias.  Matthias  was  the  sug- 
gestion of  Peter  and  Peter  made  mistakes.  He  made  a 
mistake  when  he  said:  "Be  it  far  from  Thee,  Lord."  He 
made  a  mistake  when  he  denied  his  Master.  He  made  a 
mistake  at  Antioch  when  he  overturned  the  Gospel  and 
taught  circumcision :  "building  again  the  things  which  he 
had  destroyed."  "I  withstood  him  to  the  face,"  says  St. 
Paul  "because  he  was  to  be  blamed." 

Impetuous  Peter  steps  forward  to  make  an  Apostle.  He 
gives  the  Lord,  so  to  say,  a  choice  between  two,Matthias 
and  Justus.  The  lot  falls  on  Matthias  and  they  number  him 
with  the  twelve  and  that  is  the  last  that  is  heard  of  him. 
The  Lord  keeps  silent.  By  and  by,  He  comes  down  from 
heaven  and,  Himself  in  Person,  adds  to  the  original  eleven, 
another  twelfth  apostle,  "one  born  out  of  due  time — born 
agam  out  of  heaven  as  Judas  will  be  born  again  out  of  and 
from  under  the  earth.  The  twelfth  name  on  the  "twelve 
foundations"  of  the  Xew  Jerusalem  will  not  be  that  of 
Matthias  but  that  of  St.  Paul :  not  only  an  Apostle  but  "not 
a  whit  behind  the  very  Chiefest  Apostles"  though  in  him- 
self, nothing. 

I  think  a  study  of  St.  Paul  will  show  that  Judas  was  the 
shadow  which  haunted  all  his  life.  He  seems,  by  a  singular 
rebound  from  Judas,  to  have  cultivated  almost  to  an  ex- 
treme the  quality  of  disinterestedness.  Instead  of  going  for 
the  "bag,"  he  takes  nothing  from  the  Church :  he  earns  his 
own  living.  At  the  feet  of  the  other  apostles,  money  and 
possessions  are  laid  down  in  abundance.  Xone  are  laid 
down  at  the  feet  of  St.  Paul.     He  claims  that  "they  who 


374  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

preach  the  Gospel  should  live  of  the  Gospel,"  but  he  himself 
will  have  none  of  it.  His  motto  is  to  give  not  to  gain.  "It 
is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive"  and  this  Apostle 
will  be  on  the  "more  blessed"  hand.  For  others  St.  Paul 
"could  even  wish  himself  accursed  from  Christ."  So  far 
from  pushing  himself  to  the  fore  as  "greatest,"  he  speaks 
of  himself  as  "less  than  the  least  of  all  saints." 

St.  Paul  seems  to  have  had  Judas  always  in  mind.  He 
felt  he  was  taking  his  place  and  feared  lest  he  also,  "having 
preached  to  others  should  himself  be  a  castaway."  Not  that 
he  ever  for  a  moment  doubted  his  salvation — that  anything 
could  "separate  him  from  the  love  of  Christ,"  or  that  the 
"crown  laid  up  for  him  in  heaven,"  would  fail  him.  Not 
that  he  ever,  for  a  moment  doubted  his  salvation  which  was 
secured  by  immutable  promise:  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
walking  along  the  verge  of  a  precipice,  where  another  has 
fallen,  with  horror  and  with  the  tremulous  cadence  of  an 
inward  whisper :  "Let  him  that  thinketh  he  standeth  take 
heed  lest  he  fall.    Be  not  high-minded  but  fear." 

SOLI   DEO   GLORIA! 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  375 

WHY  DID  GOD  CREATE? 

A  Blow  at  Materialism. 

"The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  Himself;  jea,  even  the 
wicked  for  the  day  of  evil." — Prov.  xvi  -.4. 

Why  did  God  create?  That  question,  at  first  thought, 
may  seem  "over  our  heads."  It  may  seem  abstruse,  not 
practical. 

I  shall  try  to  show  that  so  far  from  being  over  our  heads, 
it  is  most  simple — level  to  the  commonest  capacity — that  so 
far  from  being  abstruse,  it  is  of  all  most  practical.  Unless 
we  know  what  God  is  aiming  at,  we  shall  not  know  what  we 
ought  to  aim  at ;  and  shall  be  certain  to  miss  of  our  aim. 

1. — Then,  God  did  not  create  at  random,  in  wantonness. 
It  is  the  act  of  a  fool  to  build  without  object. 

2. — God  did  not  create  by  necessity,  i.  e.,  by  pressure  of 
force  from  without.  When  God  began  to  create  there  was 
nothing  without.  He  Himself  was  time,  space,  universe — 
all  things.  Nothing  outside  could  act  upon  Him  to  be  other 
than  He  was  for  there  was  nothing  outside,  and  without 
Him  there  could  be  nothing  outside. 

3. — God  did  not  create  for  the  sake  of  the  creatures.  In 
the  first  place  there  were  no  creatures  in  fact;  and  creatures 
in  view  must  exist  for  their  Creator  and  not  the  reverse. 
When  a  man  builds  a  house,  he  builds  it,  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  house,  but  for  the  sake  of  considerations  in  his  own- 
self,  to  further  Higher  ends  and  plans. 

Again :  Did  God  create  simply  for  the  creature,  or  su- 
premely, in  the  last,  final  end  for  the  creature,  then  w7e  must 
suppose  that  suffering  could  never  have  come  in.  A  universe 
of  creatures  without  suffering,  as  free  from  it  as  God  Him- 
self is  the  direct  logic  of  the  creature  as  God's  chiefest  end. 
But  when  we  see  God  not  only  permitting,  but  inflicting 
suffering,  and  as,  upon  devils  and  upon  sinners  in  Hell  not 
for  their  good,  not  because  they  are  ever  to  be  made  better, 
or  happier  by  it,  but  simply  for  the  ends  of  justice;  for  the 
rendering  to  them  of  their  unavoidable,  unspeakable  deserts ; 


376  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

why  then  we  must  believe  that  God  had  some  higher  ulterior 
end — above,  away  beyond  all  creatures,  when  He  created 
the  world. 

4. — Then,  we  have  the  doctrine,  or  fixed  statement  of  the 
text — God  Created  for  His  Own  Glory,  to  display,  unfold 
Himself.  Were  a  rose-bud  conscious  we  might  hear  it  say : 
"I  must  unfold  myself,  whether  any  one  sees  it  or  not; 
whether  any  one  is  blessed  by  it  or  not ;  I  must  expand  my 
petals,  bloom-out ;  it  is  the  law  of  my  nature." 

Glory  is  manifested  excellence.  Excellence  in  God,  the 
Fountain  of  Excellence,  could  not  be  hidden.  A  fountain 
must  flow;  the  sun  must  shine.  Their  reasons  for  this  are 
within  themselves ;  their  fullness,  their  diffusiveness.  God's 
reason  for  creating  is  His  own  diffusiveness. 

Attributes  are  of  no  value  if  they  are  never  exercised;  for 
example :  that  a  man  be  able  to  paint,  but  never  paints ;  that 
he  be  able  to  sing,  but  never  sings ;  that  he  be  able  to  teach, 
but  never  opens  his  mouth. 

"The  end  of  wisdom,"  says  Tennent,  "is  design;  the  end 
of  power  is  action;  the  end  of  goodness  is  doing  good.  To 
suppose  these  perfections  latent  in  God,  not  exercised;  not 
manifested  is  to  represent  them  as  useless,  as  insignificant. 
Of  what  use  would  God's  wisdom  be  if  it  had  nothing  to 
govern?  His  almightiness,  if  it  never  brought  anything  to 
pass?  His  goodness,  if  it  never  did  anything  truly  benevo- 
lent?" 

God's  end  in  creating  therefore  is  to  tell  Himself  out — 
to  "reveal,"  as  the  Scripture  puts  it — "display  Himself." 
He  mirrors  Himself  in  the  creation,  that  He  may  not  only 
exhibit  Himself;  but,  unlike  the  rose  that  blooms  in  the 
desert,  be  recognized  and  admired.  God  manifests  Himself 
to  creation,  to  be  acknowledged  by  the  Creation.  His  full- 
ness is  given  to  be  returned.  There  is  both  emanation,  as 
the  old  Divines  would  say,  and  r^-manation.  "The  efful- 
gence shines  upon  the  creature,  into  the  creature  and  is  re- 
flected back  from  the  creature  to  the  All-luminous  Sun.  The 
beams  of  glory  come  from  God  and  are  something  of  God 
and  are  refunded  back  to  their  original."  So  that  of  Him 
and  through  Him,  and  to  Him  are  all  things;  and  God  is 
Alpha,  Iota,  Omega — Beginning  and  Middle  and  End. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  377 

God's  end  in  creation,  then,  was  His  own  glory.  He  is  His 
own  last,  final,  chief  end. 

For  direct  proof  of  this  consider: 

I. — The  Bible  says  so,  as  in  the  text:  "The  Lord  hath 
made  all  things  for  Himself."  .  .  .  The  word  $>ya, 
"hath  made"  is  here  intensive,  it  means  greatest  work,  su- 
preme achievement,  master  stroke,  last,  highest  end.  "The 
Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  Himself,  yea  even  the  wicked 
for  the  day  of  evil."  To  this  agree  a  thousand  other  texts, 
xii  :io:  "By  whom  are  all  things  and  to  whom  are  all  things ;" 
as  Col.  i  :i6:  "All  things  were  created  by  Him  and  for  Him ;" 
Rom.  xi  -.36:  "For  of  Him  and  through  Him  and  to  Him  are 
all  things." 

The  same  truth  is  expressed  in  all  those  Scriptures  which 
represent  God  as  last  as  well  as  first ;  that  is,  that  as  God 
is  the  first  grand  Cause  of  all  things,  so  is  He  the  last  grand 
Terminus  of  all  things — the  target  and  quiver  of  all  His 
decrees.  After  all  is  over  and  done,  there  is  God !  So  in 
Isa. :  "I  am  the  First  and  I  am  the  Last."  Again  in  Isa. : 
"I  am  the  First,  I  am  also  the  Last."  So  in  the  Rev.,  1st 
chap.  vs.  8:  "I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  Beginning  and 
the  Ending  said  the  Lord."  Again,  vs.  11 :  "I  am  Alpha  and 
Omega,  the  First  and  the  Last;"  vs.  17:  "I  am  the  First  and 
the  Last."  So  in  Revelation  at  the  close  of  the  book :  "And 
He  said  unto  me,  It  is  done.  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the 
Beginning  and  the  End,  the  First  and  the  Last." 

The  same  thing  is  taught  by  all  those  Scriptures  which 
represent  God's  glory  as  the  last,  chief  end  of  all  things.  "I 
have  created  Him  for  my  glory."  "For  Thy  pleasure  they 
are  and  were  created."  "The  work  of  My  hand  that  I  may 
be  glorified."  "The  planting  of  the  Lord  that  He  might  be 
glorified." 

So  too,  all  the  ascriptions  which  glow  in  golden  letters 
from  the  pens  of  inspiration.  "Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord 
of  Hosts,  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  His  glory."  "Glory  to 
God  in  the  highest !"  "To  God  only  wise  be  glory !"  "To 
whom  be  glory  for  ever  and  ever!"  "Now  unto  God  and 
our  Father  be  glory,  forever  and  ever."  "To  Jesus  Christ 
to  whom  be  glory  forever  and  ever."  "To  Him  be  glory 
both  now  and  forever.     Amen!"     In  all  these  texts  God's 


378  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

glory  is  exalted  as  the  blessed  end  and  consequence  of  all 
His  works ;  and  so  the  catechism  puts  it.  Nothing,  nothing", 
nothing  can  shake  it — "For  His  own  glory  he  hath  fore- 
ordained whatsoever  comes  to  pass." 

II. — And  in  the  line  of  the  Scripture,  what  did  God  live 
for  before  He  created  ?  Millions  and  millions  and  millions 
of  eternities  God  has  been  living.  He  has  been  living  as 
long  as  He  will  live.  What  then  was  He  living  for  before 
He  created?  What  was  there  to  live  for,  but  for  Himself? 
Well !  Has  He  changed?  Is  He  changeable?  Is  there  with 
Him  the  shadow  of  change?  If  not,  He  still  lives  for  Him- 
self.    He  is  His  own  last,  highest  end. 

III. — What  will  God  live  for  after  the  present  creation  is 
wound  up?  Not  for  all  creatures,  for  there  will  be  many 
devils  and  enemies  in  hell  for  whom,  in  no  sense,  can  God 
be  said  to  live.  For  no  creatures  will  He  live  except  for 
those  that  are  holy,  i.  e.,  for  those  who  are  one  with  Him- 
self, identified  with  Himself,  i.  e.,  for  Himself. 

IV. — God  must  live  for  the  best,  highest  end,  the  greatest 
possible  end.  But  can  God  live  for  any  object  greater  than 
Himself? 

V. — Suppose  the  opposite?  That  God  should  live  for  His 
creatures.  Then  He  must  live  down-hill,  and  live  for  the 
least  and  the  meanest  of  all  things. 

For,  once  grant  that  the  greater  is  to  be  subordinated  to 
the  less ;  let  this  principle  once  come  in  and  find  root,  and 
there  is  no  check  to  it.  If  God  can  be  supposed  to  make 
angels  His  end,  if — in  order  to  His  being  perfectly  good,  He 
must  devote  Himself  in  such  a  sense  to  His  Angels  as  to 
save  them  at  all  hazards,  no  matter  what  injury  may  accrue 
to  Himself — if  angels  may  advocate  this  and  plead  for  it, 
why  may  not  men?  Men  are  inferior  to  angels,  but  in  their 
way  equally  sensitive,  equally  selfish,  and  they  have  just  as 
good  a  right  to  plead  that  God  should  make  them  the  end  of 
His  existence  as  angels  have  that  he  should  make  them. 
Very  well !  Having  gone  thus  far ;  the  sensitive  animal 
creation,  inferior  to  man  again,  but  just  as  sensitive  and  just 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE.  379 

as  selfish,  may  come  in  and  advocate,  on  the  very  same 
grounds,  the  necessity  of  God's  making  them  His  chief  ob- 
ject in  living,  and  so,  run  it  down  far  enough  and  you  have 
God,  as  the  result  of  this  masterly  logic,  reduced  to  the 
necessity  of  living  for  a  worm.  That  is,  that  the  Great  God 
who  inhabits  eternity,  the  comprehensive  globe  and  circle 
of  an  everlasting  "Now!"  the  self-poised,  self-consistent, 
all-harmonious,  self-sufficient  God,  independent  of  all  things, 
having  in  Himself  the  springs  of  His  own  action,  happiness, 
glory  and  blessedness,  which  in  an  infinite  Being  can 
neither  be  wanting  nor  be  enhanced ;  we  have  this  glorious, 
ineffable  incomprehensible  God ;  this  Infinite  Being  and 
Duration,  this  Ancient  of  Days,  existing  for,  living  for, 
actually  shrinking  Himself  down  to  exist  for  a  grub  or  a 
snail ! 

That  is  the  doctrine  of  the  present  day  stated  plainly  and 
pointedly,  and  with  all  the  farrago  of  falsely-called  science 
stript  off.  That  is  materialism.  It  is  Infinite  Being  living 
for  slime.  It  is  Huxley  and  Darwin  and  all  that  ilk  of  vain- 
conceited  philosophers  peering  and  peering  and  peering  into 
the  mud  and  occupying  all  their  splendid  powers — they  think 
them  splendid,  and  the  world  applauds  them — not  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  God  who  made  them ;  no,  nor  even  of  the 
stars  above  them,  but  of  mollusca,  slugs  and  snakes  and 
snails,  Creation's  vermin,  refuse,  rubbish,  muck-heap ! 

But  men  who  can  thus  prostitute,  degrade  their  very 
nobler  power  of  manhood,  who  can  make  the  Soul  live  for 
merely  material,  physical  forms,  not  to  say,  make  the  spirit 
live  for  the  sensual  soul  (let  me  correct  myself,  "sensual 
souls,"  says  St.  Paul,  "have  not  the  spirit.")  Such  men, 
when  it  comes  to  religion,  to  doctrine,  that  is,  to  truth  in 
fixed,  binding  and  crystallized  form,  such  men  must  deny  to 
God  any  object  higher  than  that  which  charms,  arrests,  ab- 
sorbs and  fascinates  and  swallows  up  themselves. 

They  live  downward,  therefore  God  must  live  downward. 
They  prefer  the  physical  to  the  spiritual,  the  creature  to  the 
Creator,  therefore  must  God. 

Such  will  ever  be  the  end  of  all  philosophy  and  restless 
speculation.  Such  it  must  be,  since  there  is  a  will  in  it, 
a  passion  to  descend.  And  such  it  is.  I  now  have  struck 
the  root  of  what  is  called,  in  one  or  other  of  its  protean,  its 


380  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

chameleon  shifting  shapes,  the  new-school,  broad-school, 
liberal-school  of  thought,  the  sort  of  thing  which  prates 
about  a  governmental  policy  in  atonement;  which  reduces 
God  down  to  the  level  of  a  statesman  in  the  Democratic 
idea.  The  sort  of  thing  that  is  talking  loudly  just  now  in 
the  Andover  Review,  and  much  nearer  home,  about  Con- 
sciousness as  a  test  of  Inspiration  and  of  Religious  Belief, 
meaning  by  that  that  my  own  inner  and  perverted  sense,  my 
judgment  of  "How  the  Bible  ought  to  be  written,"  and  of 
"What,  when  written,  it  ought  to  say,"  is  to  be  my  ulti- 
matum. 

The  whole  of  it  whittles  right  down  to  this,  I  make  my 
own  notions  and  wishes  the  test — I  do  my  own  preaching — 
I  am  my  own  God. 

The  absurdity  of  the  denial  having  been  thus  exploded, 
and  the  fact  that  God  has  created  the  universe  for  Himself, 
impregnably  established. 

I. — From  Scripture. 

II. — From  the  fact  that  before  creation,  God  lived  for 
Himself  and  cannot  change. 

III. — From  the  fact  that  after  creating  is  over  He  will 
still  live  for  Himself. 

IV. — From  the  fact  that  every  wise,  holy  being  must  live 
for  the  highest,  best  object,  the  greatest  possible  end,  and 
that  God  can  live  for  no  higher  object,  no  greater  possible 
end  than  Himself. 

V. — From  the  absurdity  of  the  opposite — The  truth  hav- 
ing thus  been  established,  I  now  pass  to  certain  corollaries, 
or  conclusions  flowing  therefrom,  and  having  a  practical 
aim. 

But  just  here,  in  transition,  some  things  fall  in  to  be  said, 
without  the  due  weighing  and  valuation  of  which,  there  is 
likely  to  be  mistake. 

One  thing:  We  shall  mistake  if  we  do  not  consider  that 
God's  making  Himself  the  chief  and  the  highest  ultimate 
end  in  creation,  in  no  way  excludes  or  denies  10,000  other 
subordinate  ends,  some  of  the  grandest,  most  magnificent 
importance,  some  of  less. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  381 

Please  take  an  illustration  here.  An  invalid  is  seeking 
for  the  restoration  of  his  health.  In  order  to  this  he  projects 
a  journey  to  Florida.  But  having  projected  that  journey  he 
says  to  himself,  "There  are  several  ways  of  going  to  Florida, 
I  believe  I  will  go  through  Richmond  and  see  the  celebrated 
Washington  Monument  on  the  Capitol  hill."  Now,  if  asked 
before  leaving  home:  "Where  are  you  going?"  he  might 
truthfully  answer:  "I  am  going  to  Richmond,"  or,  "I  am 
going  to  Florida,"  and  yet  the  real  end  of  this  journey,  the 
thing  toward  which  it  finally  is  directed,  the  thing  at  the 
end  of  the  chain  where  it  stops,  is  his  health. 

A  flower  opens  itself  of  itself,  for  itself,  i.  e.,  by  stress  of 
its  nature,  not  first  of  all  to  show  color,  and  not  first  of  all 
to  breathe  fragrance,  and  not  first  of  all  to  add  beauty  to  a 
particular  garden,  and  yet  it  does  each  of  these. 

God  has  ten  thousand  ends  in  creation,  any  one  of  which 
may  be  alleged.  Thus  we  may  say  that  God  exists,  like  the 
sun,  to  pour  out  His  Being  and  blessedness — to  manifest, 
communicate  His  goodness — to  make  His  creatures  happy. 
We  may  say  this,  and  go  on  to  prove  it  from  the  fact  that 
there  is  not,  in  all  the  universe,  one  solitary  contrivance  the 
object  of  which  is  to  give  pain.  Pain,  if  pain  there  be,  is 
everywhere  incidental.  We  may  prove  this  and  accumulate 
our  proofs  from  the  gorgeous  coloring  of  clouds,  from  the 
loveliness  of  flowers,  from  the  sweetness  of  perfumes,  from 
the  exquisite  pleasures  of  taste  and  of  sense. 

All  this  is  true,  only  it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  God  has 
ten  thousand  reasons  for  existing  and  creating,  but  His  one 
chief  final  reason,  the  end  of  the  chain  where  it  stops,  is  His 
glory — Himself. 

Another  thing:  We  shall  make  a  mistake  if  we  fail  to  con- 
sider that  while  God's  end  in  creating  was  His  own  glory, 
this  glory  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  the  good  of  all  crea- 
tures who  own  Him,  and  love  Him,  and  serve  Him,  and  so 
are  identified ;  one  with  Himself.  And  that  this  will  be 
found  to  be  the  immense  majority  at  the  last,  no  one,  with 
the  Bible  in  hand,  can  very  well  question. 

The  majority  of  our  race,  the  vast  majority  in  the  winding 
up  at  the  last  will  be  saved.  If  two-thirds  of  the  Angels 
were  saved,  as  we  know  from  the  Bible  they  were,  if  two- 
thirds  were  elect  from  a  race  for  which  was  brought  in  no 


382  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

special  provision,  how  many  may  we  expect  from  a  race 
whose  nature  God's  Son  took  upon  Him,  that  in  it  He  might 
taste  death  ? 

No  doubt  the  scripture  says  that  "many  are  called,  but  few 
chosen."  No  doubt  in  many  localities,  in  many  generations, 
the  number  of  the  saved  is  as  nothing  in  comparison  with 
thai  of  the  lost.  No  doubt  in  certain  congregations,  owing 
to  the  apathy  and  unbelief  of  Christians,  even  under  the 
most  powerful  representations  of  the  truth,  but  few  of  the 
great  mass  are  saved.  Yet  in  the  last  result,  taking  saved 
infants  and  the  saints  of  the  Millennium  into  account,  un- 
doubtedly the  vast  majority  of  our  race,  a  multitude  indeed 
whom  no  man  can  number,  will  be  found  at  the  right  hand 
of  God. 

Probably  the  number  of  the  lost,  in  the  comparison  of 
final,  grand  totals  will  be  very  much  what  the  number  of 
prisoners  in  our  jails  and  our  prisons  now  is,  to  the  number 
of  loyal,  respectable  citizens  who  are  enjoying  their  liberty, 
walking  at  large. 

Clear  enough  then  it  is  that  God's  chief  end,  His  last, 
final  object  of  being,  of  action,  creation  and  aim  is,  and 
must  be,  Himself,  His  own  glory. 

This  being  so,  it  follows : 

ist. — If  God  exists  for  Himself  He  must  govern  for  Him- 
self, not  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number,  al- 
though, as  we  have  seen,  that,  in  the  end,  will  turn  out  the 
fact.  Not  either  to  make  an  impression  on  the  universe  that 
sin  is  a  bad  thing  and  that  it  ought  not  to  be  let  to  pass  by 
without  something  done.  Not,  once  again ;  to  balance  opin- 
ions, and  compromise  clashing  questions,  so  as,  in  the  main, 
to  steer  through  and  keep  up  a  somewhat  respectable  throne ; 
but,  first  of  all,  like  a  needle  toward  the  Fixed  Star,  for 
Himself. 

As  it  would  be  a  shame  for  God  to  exist  for  any  less  than 
the  highest,  best  end,  so  would  it  be  a  shame  for  His  admin- 
istration to  have  any  less  motive,  direction  and  aim  than  the 
highest,  best  end,  and  that  is  Himself. 

As  God's  chief  end  is,  therefore,  to  glorify  Himself,  His 
greatest  object;  so  our  chief  end  is  to  glorify  Him,  our 
greatest  object,  and  God  is  bound  so  to  govern  us  as  to  se- 
cure that  chief  end  by  bestowing  rewards  upon  His  believ- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  3%3 

ing,  submissive,  obedient  children,  and  wrath  upon  those 
who  are  wilful  and  who  refuse  to  obey. 

2d. — If  this  be  so,  then  God  will  carry  out  His  law.  Why 
not?  No  reason  why  not,  no  inducement,  no  shadow  of 
chance  of  anything  else.  Balanced  by  no  bribe,  no  special 
pleading,  no  unworthy  and  inferior  consideration — impartial, 
actuated  only  by  the  highest,  noblest  end  of  action — no  mere 
suffering,  as  such,  no  appeal  to  interest  or  prejudice  or  party 
can  upon  this  very  point  of  right  and  wrong  affect  Him.  It 
is  with  God  as  with  an  English  judge  who  receiving  his 
appointment,  not  from  the  people,  nor  from  any  man  below 
him,  is  to  be  moved  by  nothing  below  him,  but  by  considera- 
tions of  the  Queen's  Majesty — the  constitution — and  the 
whole  good  of  the  realm.  And  every  one  can  see  that  this 
at  once  puts  government  upon  its  holiest,  its  noblest,  its 
securest,  and  its  most  benevolent  basis. 

God  will  carry  out  His  law.  He  will  carry  it  above  the 
clamor  and  the  incredulity,  the  mocking  and  the  jeering  of 
a  silly,  rebel  world,  just  as  an  engineer  would  carry  a  ladder 
right  above  the  heads  of  the  crowd,  up  to  the  window  of  the 
burning  house.  God  will  carry  out  His  law  just  as  the  drop 
falls  with  the  murderer  guilty  of  a  capital  crime  and  no  hope 
of  anything  else. 

No  inducement,  no  balance  of  partiality,  bribery,  special 
pleading,  petty,  unworthy  consideration  is  there  to  prevent. 
The  one  star  and  mark  ahead,  beyond  all,  is  God's  glory. 
His  Law  is  the  exhibit,  manifesto  of  His  glory,  the  satisfac- 
tion of  which  is  His  glory — the  infringement  of  which,  if 
not  made  good — every  officer  treading  a  quarter  deck,  every 
colonel  commanding  a  regiment  understands  this — the  in- 
fringement of  which,  if  not  made  good  is  God's  bitter,  eter- 
nal disgrace 

3d. — If  this  be  so,  if  God's  law  is  as  certain,  as  changeless 
as  God  is,  as  sure  to  be  carried  out  as  God  to  exist,  then  a 
chasm  is  split  right  in  front  of  our  feet,  across  which  we  be- 
hold The  Necessity  of  the  Atonement. 

"The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die !"  That  is  straight — 
that  is  solemn.  So  straight  and  so  solemn  that  when  I  was 
convinced  of  sin  I  could  not  avoid  it.  I  walked  my  room  to 
and  fro  with  the  stern  Eye  of  Justice  upon  me.  I  said,  "The 
soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die !" — then  die  I  must,  or  God,  who 


384  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

cannot  lie,  be  called  a  liar."  I  could  not  see  my  way  out — 
any  light.  It  seemed  to  me,  if  the  Bible  was  true,  I  was 
damned. 

Then,  little  by  little,  the  fact  of  the  Gospel — what  I  had 
heard  all  my  life,  but  never  had  seen  for  myself — came  filter- 
ing in.  "The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die !"  But  suppose 
One  dies  in  his  place?  Suppose  a  substitute  for  the  sinner 
— suppose,  "Die  sinner,  or  Jesus !" 

All  at  once,  the  full  daylight  broke  into  my  soul.  "That's 
it,''  I  said.  "That  is  the  Gospel !  Oh  why  did  I  never  see  it 
before?  How  simple,  how  clear,  how  straightforward! 
Now  I  understand  those  words  of  St.  Paul,  how  God  can 
justify  and  clear  the  guilty."  "Whom  God  hath  set  forth 
to  be  a  Propitiation,  through  faith  in  His  blood ;  to  declare 
at  this  time  His  righteousness,  that  God  might  be  just  and 
the  justifier  of  him  that  believeth  in  Jesus,  the  justifier  of 
the  ungodly." 

I  saw,  and  instantly,  the  Soul  of  sacrifice,  satisfaction,  sal- 
vation, a  Substitute  Christ — the  Son  of  God  all  radiant,  in 
my  place — full,  infinite  Atonement.  I  saw  and  fell  in  won- 
der, in  surrender  and  adoring  confidence  and  trust. 

The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die,  but  that  is  not  all — nor 
the  worst.  "The  wicked  shall  be  cast  into  hell,  and  all  the 
nations  that  forget  God" — only  forget.  From  this  and  other 
kindred  passages  the  truth  comes  out  that  born  fallen,  born 
sinful,  born  lost,  men  have  only  to  stay  so — to  die  so.  That 
not  only  sinners,  men  actively  sinning  shall  die,  but  that  the 
sinful,  what  the  text  calls  the  wicked,  men  in  that  state,  that 
condition  shall  die. 

A  man  may  be  just  as  wicked  while  he  is  asleep  doing 
nothing,  as  he  is  awake  breaking  into  a  house,  or  committing 
a  murder.  I  sav,  "just  as  wicked" — I  mean,  the  fact  remains 
one  and  the  same.  He  is  sinful:  the  nature  is  in  him — the 
taint  of  depravity  in  him. 

This  being  so,  such  a  man  is  just  as  guilty  before  God,  and 
just  as  sure  of  being  struck  by  justice  when  asleep  as  when 
awake.  Dying  asleep  will  not  save  him  from  being  damned. 
He  does  not  need  to  wake  up  and  commit  sin  for  justice  to 
strike  him.  The  blow  may  come  down  any  time,  any  mo- 
ment, and  why?  Simply  because  Sin  everywhere,  just 
because  it  is  sin,  deserves  to  be  struck. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  385 

If  you  see  a  snake  by  the  road,  your  first  thought,  im- 
pulse, is  to  snatch  a  stick  and  kill  it.  You  kill  the  snake  be- 
cause it  is  a  snake,  an  object  which  represents  to  you  a  thing 
deserving  death. 

The  illustration  is  a  Divine  one  and  it  will  do.  Sin  is  a 
snake  to  God's  justice.  Its  wages — the  thing  due  to  it  is 
death.  They  which  do  such  things,  says  the  Apostle — do 
them  and  have  pleasure  in  those  who  do  them — are  zvorthy 
of  death.  The  sinful  deserve  death.  They  have  only  to 
get  their  deserts,  what  belongs,  is  appropriate  to  them,  and 
they  are  doomed.  The  sinful  cannot  go  to  Heaven  for  there 
is  nothing  sinful  in  Heaven.  There  is  only  one  other  place 
than  Heaven,  and  there  they  are  certain  to  go — nothing  more 
certain — unless  their  wages,  their  deserts  due  to  sin  shall 
be  paid. 

It  is  important  for  us  to  see,  at  the  root  of  all  Bible  teach- 
ing, and  of  common  sense  too,  that  sin  is  that  thing  in  the 
universe  which  deserves  to  be  struck  and  stamped  out  sim- 
ply and  only  because  it  is  sin ;  and  that  justice,  is  that  ever- 
lasting attribute  in  God  which  like  a  lightning  stroke  falls 
on  sin  to  consume  it — to  consume  it,  because  it  is  combustible 
— because  in  itself,  it  must  be  consumed. 

I  suppose  the  whole  thing  is  summed  up,  as  the  Reformers 
used  to  say,  in  this :  Punishment  is  by  necessity  inflicted 
impersonally  upon  every  sin,  but  not  however  personally 
upon  every  sinner ;  since  through  the  singular  mercy  of  God 
some  may  be  exempted  by  the  substitution  of  a  Surety  in 
their  stead.*  The  sword  descends  and  slays  the  sin  and 
leaves  the  sinner  standing — monument  of  grace. 

These  conclusions  beingf  unassailable,  viz.,  that  God  gov- 
erns with  a  fixed  eye  to  His  glory — that  He  will  carry  out 
and  execute  His  law,  and  that  the  Atonement  is  therefore  an 
imperative  necessity,  it  follows. 

4th. — And  finally,  that  any  escape  from  the  atonement  is 
hopeless.  The  cross  meets  us  no  matter  what  way  we  go, 
in  every  pathway  of  life.    The  one  question  of  life — that  on 

*See  Turettin,  Loc.  xiv.,  Q-10.  In  hoc  sensu  dicitur  poenam  omni 
peccato  itnpersonaliter  infligendam  esse  necessario ;  sed  non  statim 
personalitcr  omni  peccatori ;  siquidem  Deus  singulari  gratia  non- 
nullos  potest  eximere  ab  ea,  substituto  in  eorum  locum  Vade. 


386  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

which  every  present,  every  future  question  is  suspended  is, 
what  is  MY  interest  in  the  cross. 

Forgetting  it  will  not  help  me ;  denying  it  will  not  help 
me;  procrastinating,  putting  it  off,  will  not  help  me.  I  am 
a  lost  man  on  my  way  to  hell,  up  to  the  moment  I  consent 
to  risk  myself  on  Christ.  "He  that  believeth  not  is  con- 
demned already.  He  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not 
see  life,  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him" — stays  on 
him,  just  where  it  is.  ''He  that  believeth  not  shall  be 
damned." 

The  punishment  of  the  wicked,  of  the  rejecters  of  Christ 
is  unavoidable  and  everlasting.  There  will  be  no  "fixing  it 
up."  Even  now-a-days  and  under  our  poor  pretences  of 
justice,  every  now  and  then  the  rogue,  the  defaulter  is 
pilloried,  sentenced.  So  will  it  be,  must  it  be,  in  the  final 
adjustment  of  God. 

These  facts,  my  brethren,  are  not  sensational.  They  are 
facts  which  will  bear  any  amount  of  pondering,  and  the  more 
they  are  pondered,  the  more  real,  more  weighty,  they  are. 

These  are  facts  which  serious,  sober,  honest  men,  who 
love  their  souls,  should  not  only  ponder  but  act  on. 

And  what  reason  can  you  give,  who  have  not  acted,  why 
you  should  not  act  upon  them  now? 

We  preach  the  Gospel  with  the  design  and  intention  that 
you  should  accept.    The  offer  is  made  to  be  taken  right  up. 

What  reason  why  you  should  not  receive  and  welcome 
Christ  and  cast  yourself  on  Him  as  your  Saviour  this  mo- 
ment? 

No  reason  in  yourself,  for  you  are  dying  just  now ;  lost 
without  Him. 

No  reason  in  God  since  God  has  taken  the  whole  business 
of  His  justice  and  His  glory  up  into  His  own  hands,  and 
satisfied  them  and  Himself  in  Christ.  If  then  God  is  satis- 
fied and  justice  satisfied ;  and  God  can  be  everlastingly  glori- 
fied in  saving  you,  for  Christ's  sake  at  no  cost  to  you,  why 
not  let  Him  do  it,  and  do  it  at  once  and  have  it  over  and 
done?  Why  not  say  "I  cast  myself  on  Christ;  I  rest  my- 
self, a  poor  sinner,  upon  Him  to  save  me,  anfl  I  believe  on 
God's  word,  I  am  saved." 

For  all  His  people  Jesus  Christ  was  Substitute ;  if  you  be- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  387 

lieve  on  Him,  you  are  one  of  His  people,  saved  on  the  in- 
stant,  just   now! 

"But  no  one  has  spoken  to  me  to  help  me.  It  would  not 
be  expected,  I  fear.  It  would  be  a  surprise  were  I  to  come 
forward  and  confess  Christ !" 

Not  at  all — Not  at  all!  The  fact  that  the  Sabbath  was 
made  for  this  business ;  the  fact  that  the  Church  was  built 
for  this  business ;  the  fact  that  the  Gospel  is  preached  for 
this  business ;  the  fact  that  you  are  lost,  remain  as  you  are — 
all  these  facts  are  your  apology,  are  your  inducement,  were 
any  needed. 

"But  I  am  coming  some  day!"  Why  not  then  this  day? 
When  God  is  calling  can  you  come  too  soon?  When  God 
commands  can  you  obey  too  quickly?  You  are  coming 
some  day.  That  you  have  made  up  your  mind  to.  Then 
you  have  granted  the  question ;  then  you  have  yielded  the 
whole  of  the  argument;  then  to-day  and  till  you  come  you 
are  without  excuse  and  shieldless.  Yes,  and  before  that 
coming  day  shall  come,  another  day  may  come, 

"Ghastly  death  will  quickly  come, 

And  drag  you  to  his  bar, 
Then  to  hear  your  awful  doom, 
Will  fill  you  with  despair." 

Why  not  then  take  a  second  and  a  better  thought  upon  it  ? 
You  are  now  so  near  to  the  kingdom ;  it  would  indeed  be  too 
bad,  on  the  threshold  of  life  to  slip  back.  There  are  some 
here  who  never  were  so  near  being  saved  as  they  have  been 
during  the  last  fezv  weeks.  This  makes  the  question  far 
more  solemn.  Behold  I  have  set  before  thee  an  open  door. 
The  door  is  open  now.  Oh  enter,  enter,  before  the  Spirit  of 
God  withdraws  from  you — before  the  door  is  shut. 

Enter!  What's  entering?  The  slightest  willingness  fol- 
lowed up.  Cast  anchor  in  Christ  and  follow  it  up  by  taking 
your  stand. 

Oh  if  some  how  or  other,  anyhow,  a  man  will  yield  in 
some  measure,  in  some  little  to  God ;  then,  there  is  the  rift 
in  the  wall  of  the  obstinate  will,  through  which  God  enters 
to  save. 

A  vessel  had  once  been  wrecked  upon  a  rocky  coast  and  a 
number  of  bodies  had  been  flung  upon  the  beach.     Man}- 


388  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

came  down,  in  the  wild  night,  to  see  if  help  could  be  ren- 
dered to  any  of  the  shipwrecked,  but  they  all  seemed  lifeless. 
They  turned  the  bodies  over  to  discover  any  signs  of  anima- 
tion but  were  unsuccessful  until  they  came  to  a  boy  16  years 
of  age.  They  touched  him,  and  all,  except  one  woman,  de- 
clared he  was  dead.  She  detected  that  his  eye  had  trembled 
when  he  was  moved.  Acting  on  this  they  redoubled  their 
efforts  and  saved  him.  A  tremble  of  the  eyelid ;  that  was  all, 
yet  it  saved  him.  Willingness,  willingness,  willingness  is 
everything  in  religion — willingness  to  venture  on  Christ. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  389 


OPPOSITIONS  OF   SCIENCE. 


"O  Timothy,  keep  that  which  is  committed  to  thy  trust,  avoiding 
profane  and  vain  babblings  and  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so 
called :  which  some  professing  have  erred  concerning  the  faith." — 
1  Tim.  6:20,  21. 


1.  The  religion  of  the  Bible,  is  a  positive  religion — 
"Keep  that  which   is  committed  to  thy  trust." 

2.  The  system  of  theology  revealed  in  the  Bible  does 
not  explain  everything — to  do  that  it  must  be  commen- 
surate with  God. 

3.  But  so  far  as  it  does  explain — and  it  explains 
enough  for  salvation — it  is  clear,  distinct,  consistent  and 
irrefragible.  Grant  one  doctrine  or  proposition  and  you 
*rant  all  the  rest. 

4.  A  heretic,  according  to  St.  Paul,  is  one  who  con- 
futes himself — he  is  subverted  exestraptai — he  turns  him- 
self inside  out,  upside  down — he  is  autokatakritos — his 
own  critic — a  living  self-contradiction. 

5.  The  trouble  with  such  men  is,  at  the  bottom,  the  lack 
of  a  new  birth — of  regeneration. 

6.  Hence  they  are  spiritual  weathercocks — never  set- 
tled in  anything — ever  learning,  but  never  able  to  come  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  truth — never  arriving  at  the  convic- 
tion which — deeper  than  the  moral  being  itself — makes  holy 
martyrs. 

7.  The  religion  and  the  theology  of  the  Bible,  there- 
fore, being  a  settled  thing,  a  Rock — as  settled  as  geom- 
etry, or  as  the  throne  of  God  itself,  everything  which  pre- 
tends to  be  religion  among  men  must  be  squared  to  it. 
"To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony;  if  they  speak  not  ac- 
cording to  this  word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  light  in 
them."  "For  our  Gospel  is  not  Yea  and  Nay" — yes  and  no 
— "but  Yea  and  Amen  in  Christ  Jesus." 


390  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Theology,  then,  is  uncompromizing.  It  asks  nothing 
of  the  human  reason  but  reception — nothing  invented, 
nothing  added,  nothing  apologetic.  It  is  indeed — Kindly 
but  firmly,  "Take  it  or  leave  it.  If  you  take  it,  you  must 
take  it  wholly.  If  you  do  not  take  it  wholly,  you  must  not 
take  it  at  all." 

The  Church  does  not  flatter  men — nor  consent  to  com- 
promise with  men.  She  is  the  Pillar  and  ground  of  the 
truth — an  authoritative  Teacher  for  all  time — in  all  ages. 
These  thing  being  premised,  we  have  only  to  weigh  in  the 
balances  of  the  Sanctuary  whatever  offers  itself  for  our 
credence.  If  it  too  lightly  touches  the  scale,  it  must  be 
written   "Tekel" — "Thou   art   found   wanting." 

Christian  Science. 

Recently,  a  new  phase  of  what  calls  itself  religious 
thought  has  appeared  and  has  crystallized  into  a  cult. 

Like  all  error — profound  because  muddy — imposing  be- 
cause pretentious — vague  because  shifting  and  without 
fixedness,  it  is  impossible  to  make  a  system  out  of  Eddyism, 
or  to  say  just  what  it  is.  This  is  not  my  judgment  only. 
Able  men  confess  their  inability  to  follow  or  to  understand 
its  tergiversations,  verbiage  and  travesties  of  ordinary 
language.  Bishop  Fallows  of  the  Reformed  Episcopal 
Church  says:  "I  have  given  it  as  much  attention  as  I  gave 
to  the  study  of  the  Integral  and  Differential  Calculus  when 
in  the  University,  but  the  more  I  have  pored  over  it,  the 
less  I  have  known.  I  have  tried  to  get  other  scholars,  in- 
side and  outside  College  walls,  to  help  me  to  a  clearer  no- 
tion of  its  philosophy,  but  I  could  not."  They  were  also 
floundering  in  the  mire  as  well  as  he. 

I  have  gone  through  "Science  and  Health  with  Key  to 
the  Scriptures" — the  Book  which  purports  to  be  ground 
and  standard  of  this  new  belief. 

After  sifting  the  various  reiterated  statements,  it  all 
comes  to  this.  "Nothing  exists  but  Mind.  God  means 
Universal  Mind.  I  am  part  of  that  Mind — every  moral 
being  is  part  of  it.  God  is  I  and  I  am  God,  and  nothing 
exists  outside."  "Man  is  the  expression  of  God,  soul." 
"There  is  no  finite  soul  or  spirit."  All  is  Universal  Mind 
and  merged  in  mind,  or  to  quote  the  motto  prefixed  to 
the  book  which  sums  the  teaching: 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  391 

"I,  I,  I,  I,  itself— I 
The  inside  and  outside,  the  what 

and  the  why, 
The  when  and  the  where,  the 

low  and  the  high 
All  I.  I.  I,  I  — itself,  I.' 

There  is  no  such  thing,  therefore,  as  matter — i.  e.  physi- 
cal substance,  nor  death,  nor  pain,  nor  sickness,  nor  sin. 
There  is  no  objective.  All  that  appears  is  a  projection  of 
mind.  You  think  you  see  a  chair,  a  table.  There  is  no 
chair  or  table.  It  is  a  thought,  a  picture  projected  by  mind. 
It  is  precisely  as  in  a  dream.  We  think  we  see  things,  and 
we  think  we  touch  things  but  they  are  not  real — and  so 
when  we  are  awake.* 

Sickness  is  an  error — pain  is  a  mistake.  "Coughs,  colds 
and  contagion,"  says  the  book,  are  human  theories."  If 
you  think,  then,  you  have  a  headache,  there  is  no  head  and 
no  ache.  If  you  think  you  have  the  rheumatism,  there  are 
no  twinges  and  there  are  no  bones.  All  you  have  to  do,  is 
— like  Podsnap  in  Dickens — put  them  out  of  sight — wave 
them  behind  you  and  they  are  gone. 

"There  is  no  sickness  and  there  is  no  death.  It  is  an 
error  of  mortal  mind — i.  e.  the  flesh" — whatever  flesh  may 
be,  where  is  no  matter.  But  there  is  no  death,  no  casket — 
and  no  funeral  and  no  grave.  Dismiss,  deny  them — Presto ! 
they  are  gone. 

Nor  is  there  any  curse.  Who  is  there  to  curse? 
"Wrath,"  says  the  Book,  "is  not  righteous."  There  is 
no  sin.  It  is  an  error  to  feel  a  thing  sinful.  Banish  the 
thought — it  is  gone.  There  is  no  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong  save  as  you  yourself  make  it. 

Now  I  do  not  mean  to  occupy  this  sacred  hour  with  what 
it  not  the  Gospel — any  further  than  the  Negative  may  be 
a  help  to  the  clearer  and  more  impressive  enumeration  of 

*  "Mortal  existence  is  a  dream.  A  mortal  may  be  weary,  or 
pained,  enjoy  or  suffer,  according  to  the  dream  he  entertains  in 
sleep.  When  that  dream  vanishes,  the  mortal  finds  himself  ex- 
periencing none  of  these  dream-sensations.  Now  I  ask,  Is  there 
any  more  reality  in  the  waking  dream  of  mortal  existence  than  in 
the  sleeping  dream?  There  cannot  be,  since  whatever  appears  to  be 
a  mortal  mind  or  body  is  a  mortal  dream." — Science  and  Health, 
p.  250. 


392  THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE. 

the  Positive.  Some  would  say :  "Do  not  touch  it.  Our 
business  is  to  teach  truth,  not  confute  error.  Leave  it 
alone.  If  this  counsel  is  not  of  God,  it  will  come  to 
naught." 

It  will  surely  come  to  naught,  but  that  does  not  excuse 
cowardice — a  hesitation  to  throw  oneself  into  the  breach 
as  did  Phinehas  when  he  slew  the  Midianitish  woman,  and 
David  when  he  withstood  Goliath,  Peter  when  he  rebuked 
Simon  Magus,  and  Paul  when  he  blinded  Elymas. 

For  Christianity  is  not  didactic  and  defensive,  only.  It 
is  polemic  and  aggressive  as  well.  It  has  a  world  to  con- 
quer— paganism  at  home  as  well  as  abroad — Delusions  at 
home  as  well  as  abroad  and  there  is  no  delusion  too  ab- 
surd to  sweep  in  its  hundreds  of  thousands  of  votaries — 
"too  absurd,''  as  Mark  Twain  puts  it — "for  humanity  to 
swallow."  Beside, — there  is  a  terrible  denunciation  of  the 
false  prophet  who  saves  himself — who  sees  evil  coming 
over  the  land  and  refuses  to  give  an  alarm.  "O  Son  of 
man,  I  have  set  thee  a  watchman  unto  the  house  of  Israel, 
therefore  thou  shalt  hear  the  word  at  My  mouth  and  warn 
them  from  Me.  If  thou  warn  them,  thou  hast  delivered 
thy  soul — but,  if  not,  their  blood  will  I  require  at  thy  hand." 

Consider  then, 

I.  What  of  Spiritural  doctrine  this  new  cult  destroys. 

II.  How  it  contradicts  common-sense  and  all  proper 
science. 

I.  What  of  Scriptual  doctrine,  this  new  cult — the  wor- 
ship of  Mind  as  all,  and  all  in  Mind — destroys :  viz. :  Prayer 
— the  Trinity, — Creation  and  matter. — Sin,  sickness  and 
death, — Atonement, — New  Birth, — a  sovereign  Election, 
and, 

i. — Prayer.  The  First  Chapter  of  "Science  and  Health" 
is  devoted  to  the  abolishment  of  the  Scriptural  doctrine 
of  prayer.  "Audible  prayer,"  we  are  told,  "is  impressive 
but  produces  no  lasting  benefit."  "God  is  not  influenced  by 
man.  The  'divine  ear'  is  not  an  auditorial  nerve.  Who 
would  stand  before  a  blackboard  and  pray  the  principle  of 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  393 

mathematics  to  work  out  the  problem.     We  work  it  out." 
Mind  does  it. 

Of  course  this  is  the  destruction  of  what  the  Bible  calls. 
"Calling  upon  the  Name  of  the  Lord" — "Then  began  men 
to  call  upon  the  Name  of  the  Lord" — "Whosoever  shall 
call  upon  the  Name  of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved."  It  is  the 
destruction  of  that  felt  dependence  upon  a  Personal  Being 
above  us,  apart  from  us,  to  whom  we  are  responsible,  which 
Scripture  makes  the  basis  of  any  right  experience.  It  is 
the  ruin  of  the  Confession  of  Sin.  "If  we  say  we  have  no 
sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us.  If 
we  confess  our  sins.  He  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us 
our  sins  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness." 
"Prayer,"  says  the  "Science,"  "is  not  to  be  used  as  a  con- 
fessional. To  pray  aright  we  must  close  the  lips  and  silence 
the  material  senses.  In  the  quiet  sanctuary  of  earnest 
longings,  we  must  deny  sin  and  plead  God's  allness."  It  is 
the  destruction  of  that  "prayer  of  faith"  to  which  alone, 
God  has  promised  to  listen.  It  is  the  denial  of  that  "fer- 
vent effectual  prayer"  which  availeth  much.  It  is  the  an- 
nihilation of  prayer  with  the  voice,  in  private  or  in  public, 
and  yet  David  says :  "I  cried  unto  the  Lord  with  my 
mouth."  "I  cried  unto  the  Lord  with  my  voice  and  He 
gave  ear  to  me."  "Evening,  morning  and  at  noon  will  I 
pray  and  cry  aloud  and  He  shall  hear  my  voice.'' 

2.  Eddyism  destroys  the  Holy  Trinity.  "The  theory 
of  three  persons  in  one  God — (that  is,  a  personal  Trinity 
or  Tri-unity),"  says  the  "Science,"  "suggests  polytheism 
rather  than  an  ever  present,  /  Am.  God  cannot  be  under- 
stood through  mortal  concepts.  The  precise  form  of  God 
must  be  of  small  importance  when  compared  with  the  sub- 
lime question,  'What  is  Infinite  Mind?'" 

This  destruction  of  the  Trinity  is,  of  course,  the  destruc- 
tion of  Incarnation.  "If  God  is  limited  to  man  or  matter," 
says  the  "Science,"  "or  if  the  infinite  could  be  circumscribed 
in  the  finite,  God  would  then  be  corporeal,  and  unlimited 
Mind  would  seem  to  spring  from  a  limited  body,  but  this 
is  an  impossibility.  Mind  can  never  be  in  bonds,  nor  mani- 
fested through  corporeality." 

Here  we  have  Mohammedanism  and  Unitarianism  pure 
and  simple.     Only  to  the  Mohammedan  and  the  Unitarian 


394  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

God  is  still  a  personal  Spirit,  while  the  "Science"  makes 
Him  something-  vaguer  and  less  real  even  than  that.  He 
is  the  Universal  Mind.     "God  is  allness — Allness  is  God." 

3.  Denying  the  Trinity,  and  denying,  in  toto,  the  reality 
of  matter,  the  "Science"  denies,  of  course,  the  story  of  the 
Creation.  "Let  there  be  light  is  the  perpetual  demand  of 
Truth  and  Love  changing  chaos  into  order  and  discord 
into  the  music  of  the  spheres."  "The  mythical  theories  of 
creation  are  vague  hypotheses.  The  Scriptures  imply  that 
God  is  All  in  All."  "God  never  created  matter,"  again  says 
the  Science.  "There  is  nothing  in  Spirit  out  of  which  mat- 
ter could  be  made.  Spirit  is  the  only  substance.  Things 
material  are  unsubstantial.  There  is  no  truth  that  is  mate- 
rial." In  other  words,  my  senses  are  playing  jokes  upon  me. 
"The  five  senses,"  says  the  Science,  "are  deceptive." 
"Nothing  possesses  reality  or  existence  but  the  Universal 
Mind."  Presto !  Change.  Away  go  all  phenomena — Away 
go  all  the  worlds.  Stars  of  midnight,  ye  yourselves  are 
midnight  and  there  are  no  stars ! 

4.  Denying  Creation,  the  "Science"  denies,  by  logical  se- 
quence, sin,  sickness  and  death.  "Matter  and  its  claims  to 
sin,  sickness  and  death  are  contrary  to  God."  it  e.,  If  you 
grant  God  you  deny  matter  and  if  you  grant  matter  you 
deny  God.  But  sin,  sickness  and  death  go  along  with  mat- 
ter and  the  creation  of  matter.  If  then  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  the  material,  there  is  and  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
sin,  or  sickness,  or  death.  "So  long  as  we  believe  that 
soul  can  sin,"  says  the  Science,  "we  can  never  understand 
the  science  of  being."  The  awful  sense  of  wrong  doing  is 
simply  a  delusion.  Put  it  away.  You  have  not  done 
wrong.  You  are  not  sinful  for  the  "soul  is  incapable  of 
sin." 

Can  depravity — I  will  not  say  delusion — can  depravity 
go  further  than  this  ?  "I  am  a  bad  man,"  said  one,  "but 
I  am  not  yet  bad  enough  to  deny  it."  Stark  insensibility 
to  sin  means  a  "conscience  seared  with  a  hot-iron."  What 
wonder,  if  we  start  back  in  horror,  unconsciously  reminded 
of  the  word :  "For  this  cause.  God  shall  send  them  strong 
delusion  that  they  should  believe  a  lie :  that  they  all  might 
be  damned  who  believed  not  the  truth,  but  had  pleasure  in 
unrighteousness." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  395 

With  sin,  the  effects  of  sin — sickness  and  death  are 
denied.  "You  say  a  boil  is  painful,"  says  the  Science,  "but 
that  is  impossible.  Your  imagination  makes  the  pain.  The 
boil  simply  manifests  that  you  believe  in  pain  and  you  call 
that  belief  a  boil."  Your  belief — your  fancy  is  the  only 
pain.  Apply  mind  to  the  fancy — say  the  boil  is  not  there 
and  it  is  gone. 

Two  companion  pictures  admirably  illustrate  this.  In 
the  first,  a  sick  man  appears  before  the  Scientist  who  is 
sitting  by  a  table,  in  a  chair. 

"I  am  very  sick,"  says  the  man,  "can  you  cure  me?" 

"Your  statement,  my  friend,  is  an  error,"  she  replies. 
"You  are  not  sick  at  all.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  sick- 
ness.    Now  what  do  you  imagine  ails  you  ?" 

Second  picture.  "Small-pox,  madam."  Chair  and  table 
overturned,  exit  Scientist — skirts  flying — through  the  back 
door  in  precipitate  retreat. 

"There  is  no  death,"  says  the  Science.  That  seems  a 
ghastly  pleasantry  to  utter  in  the  house  of  affliction.  There 
is  no  death  ?  I  would  not  like  to  stand  by  the  coffin  and  say 
"That  is  nothing.  Do  not  put  on  any  black ;  there  is  noth- 
ing black  in  it."  I  tell  you  there  is  something  so  awfully 
black  in  the  chasm — in  the  loss  of  the  loved  one,  that  noth- 
ing but  infinite  grace  can  help  us  to  bear  it — can  relieve, 
or  console. 

"There  shall  be  no  more  death,"  says  Holy  Scripture. 
"Oh  do  not  trouble,"  says  the  Science,  "there  is  none  now. 
Death  is  a  dream.  'It  is  a  mortal  illusion.'  "  "Death," 
says  the  Scripture,  "is  penalty — it  is  'the  wages  of  sin' — 
it  is  'the  King  of  terrors,' — 'after  death  the  judgment!'" 
Be  not  deceived,  God  is  not  mocked — the  soul  that  sin- 
neth,  it  shall  die. 

5.  Eddyism  destroys  the  Scriptural  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment. "Final  deliverance  from  error,"  says  the  "Science," 
"is  not  reached  by  pinning  one's  faith  without  works  to 
Another's  vicarious  effort."  "Whosoever  believeth  that 
wrath  is  righteous  does  not  understand  God."  "One  sac- 
rifice, however  great,  is  not  sufflcent  to  pay  the  debt  of  sin. 
The  material  Blood  of  Jesus  was  no  more  efficacious  to 
cleanse  from  sin  when  it  was  shed  upon  the  'accursed  tree' 


396  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

than  when  it  was  flowing  in  His  veins  as  He  went  daily 
about  His  Father's  business."  "Jesus  was  a  'good  man' — 
the  offspring  of  Mary's  self-communing  with  God.  Jesus 
is  the  name  of  the.  man  who  has  presented,  more  than  all 
other  men,  the  idea  of  God — but  Jesus  is  not  God." 

"Atonement,"  continues  the  Science — "at-one-ment  is 
nothing  more  than  the  exemplification  of  man's  unity  with 
God.  It  reconciles  men  to  God,  not  God  to  man,  for  how 
can  God  propitiate  Himself?  Jesus  aided  in  reconciling 
man  to  God  by  giving  man  a  truer  sense  of  Love" — i.  e.,  of 
Mind — Allness. 

These  and  similar  statements  of  the  Science  are  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  the  Scripture  which  teaches  that 
"the  Word  was  made  flesh" — that  "when  the  fulness  of 
time  was  come,  God  sent  forth  His  Son  made  of  a  woman, 
made  under  the  law  to  redeem  them  that  were  under  the 
law" — that  "Christ  hath  once  suffered  for  sins  the  just  for 
the  unjust  to  bring  tis  to  God" — that  "the  Blood  of  God 
has  bought  His  Church" — that  "without  the  shedding  of 
blood  is  no  remission" — that  "when  God  sees  the  Blood, 
He  will  pass  over  us" — that  "the  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ 
His  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin" — that  "by  one  offering 
He  hath  forever  perfected  His  saints," — and  that,  if  we  re- 
ject that  one  offering,  "there  remaineth  no  more  Sacrifice 
for  sins." 

Of  course,  if  there  be  no  literal  blood-shedding,  and  no 
literal  death  of  the  Son  of  God,  there  is  no  Resurrection. 
"The  belief  that  material  bodies  return,  to  dust,  hereafter 
to  rise  up  spiritual  bodies,"  says  the  Science,  "is  incorrect." 
"Jesus  restored  Lazarus  by  the  understanding  that  he  had 
never  died,  not  by  an  admission  that  his  body  had  died 
and  then  lived  again."  "The  interpretation  of  the  passage 
'In  my  flesh,  I  shall  see  God' — as  if  Job  intended  to  declare 
that  if  disease  and  worms  destroyed  his  body,  yet.  M  the 
latter  day,  he  should  stand  in  perfection  though  still  clad  in 
material  flesh,  is  an  interpretation  just  the  opposite  of 
true." 

Here  again  Holy  Scripture  confutes  the  Science,  by  as- 
serting :  "It  is  sown  a  natural  body,  it  is  raised  a  spiritual 
body."  Jesus  said,  "Lazarus  is  dead,"  and  St.  John  says: 
"He  that  was  dead  came   forth,"    and    again:    "Lazarus 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  397 

whom  He  raised  from  the  dead."  Job  says  "Mine  eyes 
shall  behold — I  shall  see  for  myself" — no  sense-deception 
there.  St.  Paul  shuts  the  Bible  in  the  face  of  Science  when 
he  says:  "If  the  dead  rise  not  then  is  Christ  not  raised. 
And  if  Christ  be  not  raised,  your  faith  is  vain,  ye  are  yet 
in  your  sins." 

6.  The  denial  of  the  Atonement  leads  to  the  denial  of 
the  New  Birth.  "Salvation,"  says  the  Science,  "is  not 
through  pardon  but  through  reform."  If  truth  is  over- 
coming error  in  your  daily  walk,  you  can  finally  say:  "I 
have  fought  a  good  fight.  I  have  kept  the  faith,  because 
you  are  a  better  man."  There  is  no  such  thing  as  being 
sazed — as  passing  from  death  unto  life — as  being  "quick- 
ened"— as  receiving  a  spiritual  "seed,"  the  infusion  of  a 
principle  which  was  never  in  us  before  and  never  again  will 
be  absent.  Man  purely  natural  can  work  his  own  salva- 
tion, by  getting  hold  of  the  notion  that  he  is  mind  and  mind 
only — part  of  the  Allness  of  God. 

It  is  just  here  that  we  trace  the  real  genesis  of  the 
Scietice.  It  is  simply  a  phase  of  that  Brahminism  which 
of  recent  years  has  been  imported  by  a  sad  exchange  from 
India  and  has  become  so  much  the  fad  in  certain  Lit- 
erary circles — the  notion  of  absorption  into  Brahm — "the 
Universal  Mind — the  One  without  a  second."  Man,  by 
thinking  can  think  himself  into  pure  Spirit.  He  needs  no 
Holy  Ghost. 

That  winds  the  whole  scheme  up  into  a  denial  of  a  Per- 
sonal God,  apart  from  the  universe,  Who  has  created  the 
universe  and  man ;  Who  rules  them,  and  Who  interposes, 
from  without.  His  sovereign  will  and  grace  and  action. 
And  now  we  reach  the 

7th  Christian  doctrine — the  touch  stone  of  the  rest, 
and  which  the  Science — in  common  with  every  other  error 
— especially  hates  and  denies — the  doctrine  of  particular 
personal  Election. 

Of  course,  if  men  are  born  again  by  an  influence  and 
power  from  outside  of  themselves,  they  are  dependent  on 
that  power,  and  when  it  has  been  exercised  in  their  case 
they  will  give  all  the  glory  to  God.  They  will  sav,  "Thou 
hast  led  the  blind  by  a  way  that  they  knew  not." — "God 
has  made  me  to  differ."     *     *     * 


398  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

"  'Twas  not  that  I  did  choose  Thee, 
For  Lord  that  could  not  be, 
This  heart  would  still  refuse  Thee 
But  Thou  hast  chosen  me. 
Thou,  from  the  sin  that  stained  me 
Hast  washed  and  set  me  free, 
And  to  this  end  ordained  me, 
That  I  should  live  to  Thee." 

Mrs.  Mary  Baker  Glover  Patterson  Eddy  was  admitted 
to  the  Congregational  Orthodox  Church  at  the  age  of  12 
years.  In  her  book  entitled  "Retrospection  and  Intro- 
spection" she  writes  as  follows:  "Before  this  step  was 
taken,  the  doctrine  of  Unconditional  Election"  (taught  in 
the  church  and  held  by  her  father  and  mother)  "greatly 
troubled  me.  So  perturbed  was  I  by  this  erroneous  doc- 
trine"— she  afterwards  calls  it  John  Calvin's  horrible 
decree — "that  the  family  doctor  was  summoned  and 
pronounced  me  stricken  with  fever.  When  the  meeting 
was  held  for  the  examination  of  candidates  for  mem- 
bership I  answered  declaring  that  I  never  could  unite  with 
the  church  if  assent  to  this  doctrine  was  essential  thereto. 
I  stoutly  maintained  that  I  was  willing  to  trust  God  and 
take  my  chance  of  spiritual  safety  with  my  brothers  and 
sisters,  not  one  of  whom  had  then  made  any  profession  of 
religion." 

The  evident  meaning  of  all  this  is  that  the  young  girl 
gave  not  the  slightest  evidence  of  any  such  thing  as 
regeneration.  She  was  unconscious  of  any  special  and 
distinguishing  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  her  heart. 
She  was  willing  to  take  her  chances  with  the  rest  of  the 
world  who  made  no  pretence  of  such  a  change.  She 
would  not  admit  that  she  was  saved  by  any  interposing 
touch  of  mercy — in  other  words,  that  her  salvation  was 
of  God  and  not  of  herself.  She  was  "climbing  up  into 
the  sheepfold  by  some  other  way." 

And  that  great  lack  at  the  centre  of  her  experience 
explains  the  unhingement  of  her  whole  system.  Little  by 
little,  she  lapsed  from  Trinitarism  into  Unitarianism  and 
from  Unitarianism  into  what  she  calls  "Science,"  the 
essential  teaching  of  which  is  that  man  can  save  him- 
self bv  works  and  thoughts  without  a  God  or  Saviour. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  399 

II.  We  have  seen  that  the  teaching  referred  to  is  the 
annihilation  of  Christianity.  //  is  also  the  annihilation  of 
common  sense,  of  all  proper  science, — or  as  Joseph  Cook 
tersely  put  it — "Christian  Science  is  neither  Science  nor 
Christian." 

It  certainly  is  not  Science,  which  is  knowledge  based 
upon  actual  facts  reported  to  the  mind  by  the  senses.  If 
the  senses  can  lie,  then  nothing  can  be  known.  If  when  I 
see  a  thing,  I  maintain  I  do  not  see  it — if  when  I  handle 
an  object,  I  maintain  I  do  not  touch  it,  I  become  the 
apostle  of  nonsense — I  make  the  universe  a  lie  and  God  a 
liar. 

But  the  universe  is  not  a  lie.  When  I  fall  and  strike 
my  head  and  fracture  my  skull,  the  thing  is  a  reality  to 
me  and  my  friends.  Philosophize,  as  I  may,  instinct 
prompts  me  to  snatch  a  child  from  in  front  of  a  trolley 
car  and  philosophy  goes  to  the  winds  when  it  says : 
"There  is  no  trolley  and  there  is  no  danger."  The  most 
insane  disciple  of  science  will  not  seize  a  red  hot  iron  bar 
with  his  naked  hand — however  eloquent  he  may  be  in 
maintaining  that  iron  and  heat  and  burns  are  an  illusion. 

And  not  only  is  the  Science  opposed  to  common-sense, 
but  it  makes  God  a  liar.  For  the  Word  of  God  speaks  of 
matter — of  earth  and  mountains  and  rivers  and  herbs  as 
actual  existences,  and  of  man  as  having  a  material  and 
fleshly  body — as  being  subject  to  diseases  and  as  being 
cured  by  the  application  of  remedies  to  diseases.  The  Bible 
sympathizes  with  sensations,  grief  and  pain  and  terror  as 
actual  experiences.  The  universe,  according  to  the  Bible, 
is  just  as  real  as  God  is.  The  Bible  speaks  of  blue  and 
purple  and  scarlet  as  colors  which  exist  in  fact — which  all 
may  recognize.  When  I  call  blue  "blue,"  it  is  blue.  I  do 
not  deceive  myself — nor  is  blue  red,  or  yellow,  or  nothing. 

The  Science  is  opposed  to  the  experiences  of  infancy 
and  childhood  which  are  a  development  through  the  senses. 
The  child  does  not  imagine  the  outside  world.  It  does 
not  create  what  it  admires.  The  object  is  there  and  it 
arrests  the  sight  and  calls  forth  the  admiration.  The  child, 
at  first,  can  perceive  but  few  objects  and  their  relations, 
but,  as  its  "sense  becomes  exercised  to  discern,"  as  St. 
Paul  puts  it — the  child  grows  in  knowledge  and  wisdom. 


400  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

If  we  cannot  trust  our  senses,  we  can  trust  nothing — know 
nothing,  for  God  in  His  Word  constantly  appeals  to  them. 
Christ  appealed  to  them  when  He  said  "Handle  Me  and 
see  for  a  spirit  hath  not  flesh  and  bones  as  ye  see  Me 
have." 

If  I  take  poison  I  shall  die  in  spite  of  all  my  thinking. 
If  I  neglect  the  typhoid  pneumonia  I  shall  go  to  my  grave 
although  I  go  raving  "There  is  no  pneumonia  and  there 
is  no  grave." 

The  denial  of  the  senses  is  to  make  myself,  who  see,  a 
liar — the  universe,  on  which  I  look,  a  lie  and  God  who 
made  it  and  who  describes  it  as  material,  a  liar, — my 
whole  philosophy  is  one  gigantic  lie  which  will  lead  me 
down  to  the  "father  of  lies"  as  surely  as  I  have  any  being. 

The  Science  fills  grave-yards,  by  teaching  people  to 
neglect  medicine — the  proper  care  of  their  bodies  and 
health.  According  to  its  strict  theory,  "no  physical  care 
is  to  be  given  to  the  sick,  nor  sympathy,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  to  be  offered  to  the  afflicted.  He  who  suffers  is 
to  be  told  that  he  does  not  suffer,  and,  not  for  a  moment 
to  confess  to  himself  that  he  does  suffer."  He  must  say 
to  his  own  consciousness,  "You  lie !"  and  go  down  to  the 
grave  with  that  lie  in  his  right  hand. 

The  Science  is  founded  on  hypnotism.  There  are  peo- 
ple whose  will-power  dominates  weaker  wills  which  sub- 
mit to  them,  and  once  the  domination  is  established  there 
is  no  absurdity  to  which  the  devoted  dupe  will  not  bow. 
Mrs.  Eddy  is  one  of  those  strange,  uncanny,  fascinating 
people  whom  we  call  hypnotists.  We  find  them  every- 
where, though  not  on  so  colossal  a  scale.  They  are  the 
"promoters"  of  the  business  world — the  projectors  of  vast 
financial  bubbles.  In  philosophy  they  are  the  Spinoza's 
and  Fichtes  of  thought.  In  religion  they  are  the  Moham- 
meds,  the  Joe  Smiths,  the  Dowies  of  their  age.  The 
founder  of  this  cult  is  one  of  them. 

The  Science  logically  leads  to  witchcraft  and  involves 
witchcraft, — for  if  one  can  banish  pain  by  thinking  and 
by  absent  treatment,  one  can  create  or  summon  oain  by 
thinking,  as  well.  And  this  Mrs.  Eddy  asserts  and  warns 
her    followers    against — viz. :    What    she   calls    "Malicious 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  401 

Animal  Magnetism,"  which  only  she  can  detect,  and  which 
is  nothing  other  than  the  Salem  Witchcraft  revived. 

The  Science  drops  the  bottom  out  of  all  morality.  The 
Chapter  on  marriage — with  the  interweaving  of  a  vast 
amount  of  sentimental  verbiage,  goes  to  destroy  it.  "Pro- 
portionately," says  the  book — "as  human  generation  ceases, 
the  unbroken  links  of  harmonious  being  will  be  spiritually 
discerned.  To  no  longer  marry  or  be  given  in  marriage 
neither  closes  man's  continuity  nor  his  sense  of  increasing 
number  in  God's  infinite  plan."  The  plain  sense  of  which 
is,  "In  time  there  will  be  no  marriage  and  human  genera- 
tion will  be  independent  of  sex.  Children  will  be  conceived 
spiritually,  by  an  act  of  will — without  paternity  as  Jesus 
was — but  I  spare  you. 

Enough  has  been  said  of  this  awful  delusion — the  anti- 
thesis of  faith  as  St.  Paul  calls  it — in  which — Satan  mas- 
querading as  an  Angel  of  light  and  as  it  were,  by  a  second 
Eve — "the  second  great  Mary — who  has  taught  the  world 
to  know  God,"  as  the  Hon.  William  G.  Eddy,  of  Illinois 
styles  her — is  seeking,  at  the  beginning  of  the  20th  cen- 
tury, to  seduce  the  unwary — to  abolish  God,  Christ,  re- 
sponsibility, heaven  and  hell  and — by  the  repetition  of  the 
ancient  whisper,  "Ye  shall  be  as  gods,"  to  lift  man  in  his 
own  conceit  and  flatter  him  to  the  height  and  the  bent  of 
that  pride  which  goes  before  destruction  and  of  that 
haughty  spirit  which  goes  before  an  irrecoverable  fall. 

Let  us  be  wise  and  warned,  in  time,  my  Brethren.  Let 
us — in  a  world  of  delusions,  false  opinions  and  seductions 
calculated  to  deceive,  if  it  were  possible,  the  very  elect — 
be  more  and  more  determined  to  make  the  Bible,  in  its 
plain  interpretation,  our  guide,  and  the  Saviour,  which 
it  proclaims,  our  everlasting  refuge,  trust  and  portion. 
Let  us  pray  that  by  His  good  Spirit  we  may  be  led  into 
all  truth  and  not  left  in  ignorance  of  Satan's  devices. 


4Q2  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


ENTHUSIASM:   PAUL  BESIDE   HIMSELF. 

"Paul,  thou  art  beside  thyself."     Acts  26:24. 

"And  when  he  came  to  himself,  he  said :  I  will  arise  and  go  to 
my  father."     Luke   15:17. 

These  texts  put  a  sharp  contrast.  On  the  one  hand  we 
have  the  judgment  of  Festus  which  is  the  world's  judgment 
of  the  Church  and  her  most  earnest  ministers.  On  the 
other  hand  we  have  the  judgment  of  the  Prodigal  Son, 
which  is  the  penitent,  believing  sinners  judgment  in  all 
ages.  And  these  are  diametrically  opposite.  For  there  has 
always  been  a  controversy  between  the  Church  and  the 
world  as  to  which  of  the  two  is  crazy — is  mad.  The  world 
thinks  we  are.  We,  on  the  plain  word  of  God,  in  the  light 
of  experience,  under  the  shadow  of  eternal  judgment,  know 
that  they  are — that  "madness  is  in  their  heart  while  they 
live,  and  after  that  they  go  to  the  dead." 

The  world  says,  "The  prophet  is  a  fool,  the  spiritual 
man  is  mad ;"  but  God's  word  says  just  the  opposite,  "Fools 
make  a  mock  at  sin."  "The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart, 
There  is  no  God."  He  who  harbors  the  wish ;  who  runs  his 
inward  Atheism  out  in  action ;  who  sports  with  time,  eter- 
nity and  holiness ;  who  makes  a  jest  of  them ;  Oh  yes,  the 
world ;  the  skeptical  and  gilded  age ;  the  thoughtless  world ; 
the  age  of  pleasure  and  selfishness ;  the  giddy  throng 
where  fancy  reigns  and  there  is  no  conviction  ;  where  eti- 
quette is  king  and  fashion  queen  and  every  one  is  fluttering 
from  sentiment  to  sentiment,  from  creed  to  creed,  like  in- 
sects among  flowers,  pleased  with  them  all  by  turns,  but 
fixed  to  none ;  this  is  the  fool,  the  mad  thing. 

The  sinner,  not  the  saint ;  the  mocker,  not  the  minister ; 
it  is,  who  is  insane,  is  mad. 

To  these,  not  to  God's  people  rings  the  knell,  sounds  out 
the  warning  cry  above  earth's  swiftly  shifting  scenes,  its 
charming  and  deluding  dissolutions : 

"Stop,  poor  mortals,  stop  and  think 
Before  you  further  go, 
Will  you  sport  upon  the  brink 
Of  everlasting  woe. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  403 

On  the  verge  of  ruin  stop, 

Now  the  friendly  warning  take, 

Stay  your  footsteps  ere  ye  drop, 
Into  the  burning  lake." 

The  world's  view,  which  we  look  at  first,  is  that,  in  the 
parable,  the  run-away  alone  was  sane;  the  man  "taking  his 
journey  into  a  far  country"  was  sane;  the  man  consorting 
with  the  swine  was  sane ;  the  man  who  fain  would  fill  his 
belly  with  the  husks  was  sane. 

And  that  the  other  actors  in  the  scene,  except  the  elder 
brother,  who  was  not  an  actor,  but  a  critic,  an  obstruction- 
ist, were  mad. 

That  all  the  actors — put  it  so — upon  the  heaven  side, 
were  mad.  What  more  crazy  than  for  an  old  man,  model 
as  he  ought  to  be,  of  gravity  as  well  as  years,  to  rush  off 
on  a  run,  his  white  hairs  flying  in  the  winds?   Distracted! 

What  more  crazy  than  in  religion  to  have  music,  danc- 
ing? To  bring  in  the  inspiration,  quick  step  of  inspiring 
sounds — the  moving  and  impetuous  force  of  eloquence  and 
gesture? 

What  more  insane  than  fellowship  as  in  the  parable,  on 
Christian  grounds,  society  apart,  felt  manifested  brother- 
hood— communion  ? 

What  more  unseemly  than  the  haste  with  which  the  ser- 
vants killed  and  dressed  the  fatted  calf ;  the  urgency,  the 
pressure  of  Atonement?    How  outre,  eccentric. 

That  is  the  judgment  of  the  world,  and  its  judgment  the 
instant  any  new  stir,  new  movement  comes  in,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  God.  Bunyan  puts  this  excellently  well.  Christian 
had  lived  all  his  life  in  the  city  of  Destruction.  Nobody 
called  him  a  "fool."  From  all  that  appears  he  was  regarded 
as  a  solid,  sober,  reputable  citizen,  as  worthy  of  considera- 
tion, confidence,  esteem.  But  the  moment  he  set  out  to  leave 
the  city  of  Destruction ;  the  moment  he  put  his  fingers  in 
his  ears  and  ran  on  crying,  "Life!  Life!  Eternal  Life!" 
what  were  the  epithets  flung  in  his  face — hurled  after  him? 
"Fool,"  "frenzied  distemper,"  "brain-sick  fellow,"  "fan- 
tastical fellow,"  "madman !" 

So  too  in  Vanity  Fair — "so  called,"  says  Bunyan,  "be- 
cause the  town  where  it  is  kept  is  lighter  than  vanity." 


404  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"As  they  wondered  at  the  pilgrims'  apparel,  so  at  their 
speech,  for  as  they  spoke  the  language  of  Canaan  none 
could  understand  their  speech  and  therefore  they  and  the 
men  of  the  Fair  seemed,  like  barbarians,  one  to  the  other. 
When  then  Christian  and  his  fellow  said,  'We  buy  the  truth 
and  sell  it  not,'  occasion  was  taken  to  despise  them,  some 
mocking,  some  taunting,  some  speaking  reproachfully  and 
some  calling  upon  others  to  smite  them,  so  that  there  came 
to  be  a  great  hubbub  and  stir  in  the  Fair." 

That,  my  brethren,  is  the  state  of  things,  in  more  or  less 
degree,  wherever  there  is  any  quickening  of  vital  godliness. 
"The  man  who  never  yet  was  made  a  fool  for  Christ,  be- 
fore his  fellow  men,  was  never  yet  made  wise  into  salva- 
tion," and  just  as  soon  as  earnest  piety  comes  in,  the  world 
will  laugh  and  mock,  and  cry  "Fanatical,"  "extraordinary !" 
"He's  a  madman !" 

That  is  the  judgment  of  the  world  upon  us,  brethren ; 
upon  us  all  alike.  The  world  pronounces  earnest  piety,  any- 
thing peculiar  in  religion,  madness.  Yet  the  Bible  calls  us 
"a  peculiar  people."  How  peculiar !  Zealous !  And  how 
zealous?  David  says  of  himself,  and  John  confirms  it  of 
Christ,  "The  zeal  of  thine  house  hath  eaten  me  up."  And 
again  David  says,  "My  zeal  hath  consumed  me!" 

The  world  counts  every  zealous  Christian  mad,  especially 
the  ministers.  So  long  as  there  is  no  special  power  in  the 
pulpit — spiritual  power  I  mean ;  not  power  of  intellect,  nor 
power  of  eloquence,  but  spiritual  power,  the  only  power 
within  the  Church  of  God  of  any  moment — the  world  agrees 
that  the  preacher  is  sound,  sagacious,  judicious ;  but  just  as 
soon  as  the  Holy  Spirit  comes  down  and  Pentecost  appears 
in  tongues,  in  cloven  tongues,  new  utterances,  strange 
utterances,  in  Tongues  of  Fire, — the  world  cries  out :  "Be- 
side himself,  unhinged,  delirious,  full  of  new  wine,  a  mad- 
man." 

These  things  have  been  said  of  men  in  our  day.  They 
have  been  said  of  Mr.  Moody  and  of  Mr.  Spurgeon.  It  is 
incredible  what  false  and  what  atrocious  things  have  been 
reported  of  these  blessed  men.  I  know  this  for  I  have 
heard  them.  Mr.  Spurgeon  has  been  called  a  montebank. 
a  charletan,  sensational — he  has  been  caricatured,  held  up 
to  ridicule  in  every  way.    And  yet,  whoever  saw  that  Elijah- 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  405 

like  man  of  God  move  slowly,  heavily  into  the  pulpit,  who- 
ever felt  the  awful  hush  on  the  assembled  thousands  as 
he  rose  up  to  pray,  whoever  found  himself  brought,  as 
there,  face  to  face  with  vast,  unveiling  eternity,  must  have 
known  in  his  heart  the  sheer  impossibility  of  such  false- 
hoods ;  must  have  had  the  profoundest  conviction  that, 
whatever  might  be  the  most  startling,  vehement,  even 
supernatural  Mights  of  his  terrible  earnestness,  never  could 
such  a  man  be  anything  else  than  a  man,  prostrated  in 
soul,  overawed,  overwhelmed  and  laboring  under  the  pres- 
sure, solemnity,  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  "I  went  to 
hear  Mr.  Spurgeon,"  said  one  of  our  scholarly,  rhetorical 
American  preachers.  "I  went  to  criticise,  but  I  bowed  my 
head  upon  the  seat  before  me  under  one  impression,  'You, 
you  wretched  sinner,  criticising  here !  Search  yourself,  yea, 
search  and  see  for  this  is  God's  own  power.'  " 

The  world  has  spoken  thus  of  earnest  preachers  in  our 
day  and  every  other  day.  No  church  can  shield  such  a 
preacher,  can  prove  an  exception — take  Whitfield,  Row- 
land Hill,  Toplady,  in  the  Episcopal  church;  take  Haldane, 
the  Erskines,  Burns,  Thomas  Toy,  in  the  Presbyterian 
church ;  take  the  Wesleys  and  Fletcher  in  the  Methodist 
church ;  take  Edwards,  Nettleton  and  Finney  in  the  Con- 
gregational church. 

Take  Huss,  Savanorola  and  Wickliffe  before  them ;  take 
the  Apostle  Paul,  as  in  this  text,  whom  Festus  called,  "Be- 
side himself" — take  back  of  him  and  all,  our  great,  our 
royal  Master  of  whom  was  said  not  only  this,  but  more, 
"He  is  a  man  possessed !"    "He  hath  a  devil !" 

The  world  counts  as  safe,  as  sound,  as  judicious,  the 
quiet,  respectable  preacher  of  form;  the  quiet  respectable 
preacher  of  philosophy ;  the  quiet  respectable  preacher  of 
free-will,  the  polished  Arminian  who  flatters  the  flesh  and 
who  saves  it ;  and  counts  the  downright,  the  earnest  man 
mad. 

But  now  reflect  for  a  moment.  What  would  you  say, 
what  would  any  one  say  of  that  mother  in  a  burning  house 
who  strives  to  save  the  cradle  while  she  leaves  the  child  to 
the  flames?  Yet  that  is  the  preacher  of  Church  and  of 
forms.  He  striving  after  the  cradle  and  leaving  the  child 
to  burn  up. 


4o6  THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE. 

Or  what  would  you  say,  what  would  any  one  say  of  that 
man  who  on  a  sinking  ship  instead  of  getting  into  the  life- 
boat himself  and  urging  others  to  do  it,  should  spend  his 
time  in  nice  and  careful  calculations  as  to  how  the  acci- 
dent happened,  or  as  to  how  long  the  vessel  will  probably 
float,  or  as  to  how  many  of  the  passengers  will  likely  be 
saved?  Yet  that  is  the  preacher  of  philosophy.  He  is  cal- 
culating, balancing,  splitting  hairs  while  men  perish. 

Oh  what  would  you  say,  what  would  any  one  say  of 
those  Chinamen  who  when  the  flood  came  at  Fouchoo  bent 
all  their  energies  to  save  a  pig  and  let  scores,  hundreds  of 
their  fellow  men  die  without  help.  What  would  you  say? 
You  would  say  they  were  maniacs,  mad  and  yet  that  is  the 
Arminian,  the  preacher  of  human  free  will.  He  is  saving 
the  flesh,  the  pig  in  us — for  the  flesh  is  the  pig,  it  profiteth 
nothing — what  can  it  profit,  in  the  face  of  that  momentous 
fact,  "Ye  must  be  born  again?" 

But  not  only  does  the  world  pronounce  orthodox,  vehe- 
ment ministers  crazy,  but  it  goes  further  and  assails  the 
source  of  Christianity  itself.  It  pronounces  the  Bible  an 
unsafe,  inconsistent  and  dangerous  book.  It  pronounces 
the  God  of  the  Bible  a  wrong  and  mistaken,  impossible 
Being.  It  does  not  dare,  except  in  shocking  instances,  like 
Robert  Ingersoll,  to  say  the  thing  out  loud.  It  would  not 
say  it.    It  prefers  a  subterfuge. 

The  world,  rather  than  say  to  His  face  that  God  is  crazy, 
would  deny  the  God  of  the  Bible.  But  postulate,  oblige  the 
real  God  of  the  Bible,  and  the  world  says,  "He  is  mad !" 
They  said  this  to  Christ,  who  is  God,  to  His  face. 

"What  madness  to  let  a  world  fall  when  God  could  pre- 
vent it.  What  craziness  to  preach  eternal  Hell  to  finite 
men.  How  foolish  the  preaching  of  a  gospel  to  dry  bones, 
to  men  who  have  no  ears  to  hear,  nor  free  will  except  by 
the  grace  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  receive  it.  Such  a  Gospel, 
were  it  true,  would  send  more  men  to  Hell  than  it  would 
save  therefrom." 

That  is  the  world's  view — always  was — is  to-day,  That 
is  the  charge.  Extraordinary  earnestness,  unusual  devotion 
in  the  pews,  attempts  to  waylay  sinners,  to  press  home  the 
gospel ;  these  are  madness.  Extraordinary  earnestness,  un- 
usual devotion  in  the  pulpit,  the  throwing  of  the  Gospel  net 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  407 

with  real  effort  to  catch  fish  and  draw  them  in,  is  madness. 
Extraordinary  earnestness,  devotion  on  the  part  of  God  by 
shakings  of  His  providence,  by  stirrings  and  convictions 
and  awakings  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  madness. 

Such  is  the  charge.  The  Church  of  God  baptized  at  Pen- 
tecost is  mad.  The  Doctrines  of  the  church,  exact,  undevi- 
ating,  self-consistent,  all  harmonious  as  they  are,  are  mad- 
ness. The  Divine  Order  of  the  church  as  opposed  to  chaos, 
is  madness.  Her  steady  conformity  to  scriptural  and  com- 
mon sense  and  tried  and  settled  precedent  which  God  has 
blessed,  is  madness.  Her  refusal  to  pull  up  the  planting  of 
God  by  the  roots ;  her  refusal  to  shift  herself  with  shifting 
sentiment,  is  madness.  Her  assertion  of  a  character  within 
us,  a  New  Nature  infused  which  we  are  bound  to  educate, 
develop,  as  a  child,  from  faith  to  faith,  adding  to  our  faith 
virtue,  all  this  is  madness.  All  the  Divine,  to  carnal  fancy 
and  upon  the  platform  of  a  fallen  world,  is  madness. 

That  is  the  world's  view.  Now  for  the  other  side,  the 
Church's  side  of  this  quarrel.  How  does  the  Church 
view  it? 

The  Church  views  it  that  the  world  is  insane ;  that  not  the 
Father  running  to  meet  the  prodigal ;  that  not  the  servants 
hastening  to  kill  the  fatted  calf ;  that  not  the  musicians  who 
strike  up  the  organs  and  trumpets,  the  cornets  and  cym- 
bals ;  that  not  the  Davids  who  go  dancing  before  the  on- 
coming Ark  of  the  Lord,  are  insane.  That  none  of  the  men 
who  cry  aloud  and  spare  not  and  lift  up  their  voice  like  a 
trumpet  to  warn  and  awaken,  that  none  of  these  are  insane. 

And  certainly  nature  itself  confirms  the  Church  in  this 
matter  and  teaches  that  earnestness  in  religion,  great  earn- 
estness, pathos,  vehemence  in  religion  is  right.  For,  if  there 
be  a  Hell,  says  Jonathan  Edwards,  "If  there  be  really  a 
Hell  of  such  dreadful  and  never  ending  torments  as  is  gen- 
erally supposed,  of  which  multitudes  are  in  great  danger — 
and  into  which  the  greater  part  of  men  in  Christian  coun- 
tries do  actually,  from  generation  to  generation,  fall,  for 
want  of  a  sense  of  its  terribleness,  and  for  want  of  taking 
due  care  to  avoid  it — why  then,  why  is  it  not  proper  for 
those  who  have  the  care  of  souls  to  take  great  pains  to 
make  men  sensible  of  it?   Whv  should  thev  not  be  told  as 


408  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

much  of  the  truth  as  possibly  can  be?  And  why  should 
we  not  cry  aloud  and  call  earnestly  to  men  and  represent 
the  danger  they  are  in,  and  their  own  folly  in  delay,  and 
in  the  most  lively,  affected,  affectionate  manner  of  which 
we  are  capable?  Does  not  nature  teach  this?  Does  not 
nature,  humanity,  kindness  oblige  it?  And  when  ministers 
speak  of  these  things  in  a  cold  and  correct  and  indifferent 
manner;  even  when  what  they  say  is  the  truth,  do  they  not 
contradict  their  ownselves,  and  thwart  and  pull  down  their 
own  work,  since  actions  speak  louder  than  words?" 

So  much  for  Jonathan  Edwards.  But  let  me  give  one 
more  thought  from  his  extract  upon  the  "Distinguishing 
Marks  of  a  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God." 

"Suppose  that  a  person  saw  himself  hanging  over  a 
great  and  deep  pit  full  of  fierce  and  glowing  flames,  by  a 
thread  which  he  knew  to  be  very  weak,  and  not  sufficient 
to  bear  his  weight,  and  knew  that  multitudes  had  been  in 
such  circumstances  before,  and  that  most  of  them  had 
fallen  and  perished,  and  saw  nothing  within  reach,  that  he 
could  lay  hold  of,  to  save  him,  what  distress  would  he  be 
in !  How  ready  to  think  that  now  the  thread  was  break- 
ing; that  now,  this  minute,  he  should  fall  and  be  swallowed 
up  in  those  dreadful  flames !  Would  he  not  be  ready  to 
cry,  and  cry  out  loud,  and  just  as  loud  as  ever  he  could  in 
a  situation  like  that?" 

And,  we  may  add,  would  not  those  who  saw  him  hang- 
ing so,  and  saw  a  rescue  for  him  that  he  could  not  see,  a 
hand  from  which  he  was  blindly  swinging  away,  be  likely 
to  cry,  and  cry  out  loud,  and  just  as  loud  as  ever  they 
could  to  a  man  in  a  peril  so  dreadful  as  that? 

Vehemence  then  in  the  pulpit,  great  earnestness,  great 
desire,  great  effort,  is  common  sense  and  not  madness.  It 
is  what  nature  teaches.  It  is  what  scripture  enjoins  and  in- 
sists on,  "Cry  aloud  and  spare  not!"  "Son  of  man  I  have 
set  thee  a  watchman — a  watchman — if  thou  dost  not  speak 
to  warn  the  wicked  from  his  way,  that  wicked  man  shall 
die  in  his  iniquity,  but  his  blood  will  I  require  at  thine 
hand." 

Earnestness !  my  brethren,  would  to  God  that  we  were 
thrice  and  twenty  times  more  earnest !  Power  lies,  for  the 
most  part,  in  earnestness,  i.  e.,  the  other  elements  which 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  409 

enter  into  power  are  nothing  without  this.  Earnestness  is 
power  in  action,  the  white  heat  of  power.  And  can  we  be 
too  earnest?  Measured  in  comparison  with  God,  along 
the  line  of  eternity,  measured  against  the  Hell  into  which 
sinners  are  dropping  and  the  Heaven  into  which  new  con- 
verts are  sweeping,  can  any  honest,  downright  effort, 
moved  by  God,  be  too  earnest?  Put  in  contrast  with  eter- 
nal interests,  eternal  magnitudes,  was  ever  any  saved  man 
too  earnest? 

That  now  is  the  other  view  of  the  question ;  the  Church's 
view  of  this  question ;  Piety's  view  of  this  question — that 
the  world ;  the  men  who  cast  off  God's  fear,  the  men  who 
ridicule  prayer,  the  men  who  fling  away  money,  health, 
happiness,  peace  on  their  lusts,  the  men  who  procrastinate 
opportunity,  who  fool  away  privilege,  consort  with  swine, 
chew  husks,  and  perish  in  their  soul  hunger  and  in  rags 
when  there  is  bread  enough  and  bread  abundantly  to  spare ; 
that  these  are  madmen,  that  when  they  lie  upon  a  dying 
bed,  after  life's  short  and  "fitful  fever,"  they  will  wake 
and  say  :  "I  was  a  madman  !"  That  when  they  stand  before 
the  judgment  bar  of  God — last  sealing  test — they  then  will 
say :  "I  was  a  madman !" 

Now,  the  texts  from  which  I  am  preaching  put  not  only 
a  contrast,  they  put  a  change.  And  that  is  blessed,  infinitely 
blessed.  It  is  blessed  for  me,  because  it  relieves  me  and 
makes  me  happy  in  preaching.  No  man  can  be  happy  in 
looking  at  sin,  at  sorrow,  at  danger.  And  it  is  blessed  for 
you,  because  not  a  man,  not  the  most  unlikely  man  here, 
but  may  meet  with  that  change,  and  meet  with  it  now ;  from 
being  a  madman  may  come  to  himself. 

"And  when  he  came  to  himself  he  said  I  will  arise." 
When  once  a  man  comes  to  himself  there  is  a  change,  and  a 
change  in  three  senses,  as  regards  sin,  salvation  and  when 
he  shall  act:  and 

1st.  As  regards  sin.  Sin  used  to  look  easy,  now  sin  be- 
gins to  look  hard ;  the  way  of  transgression  is  seen  to  be 
hard. 

It  is  seen  to  be  so  in  the  case  of  others.  Take  Cain.  He 
pleases  himself.  He  indulges  his  anger.  He  knocks  down 
his  man.  That  is  easy.  Then  comes  the  curse ;  the  red  blood 


4to  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

on  his  hands ;  the  fugitive  flight ;  the  brand  on  his  brow ; 
the  ghost  haunting  him  always ;  Abel's  grim  ghost  that 
never  will  down.  These  things  are  not  easy.  They  are 
hard ;  increasingly  hard ;  "the  way  of  transgressors  is 
hard."  Cain  hides  from  the  ghost.  He  builds  cities.  He 
flits  from  city  to  city.  He  is  a  vagabond ;  more  and  more 
lost ;  lost  to  society,  lost  to  remembrance.  He  drops  into 
Hell.    "The  way  of  transgressors  is  hard." 

The  same  thing  is  seen  in  Esau,  in  Saul,  Jeroboam,  and 
Haman  and  Judas. 

But  the  illustration,  under  the  Spirit  of  God  is  brought 
nearer  home.  The  sinner  sees  it  in  society  around  him — in 
the  meteoric  rise,  splendor,  display  of  some  business  suc- 
cess, of  some  bustling,  brisk  speculation.  All  this  is  easy. 
It  is  wealth  without  God.  It  is  happiness  without  God, 
It  is  property  without  God.  But  wait.  Let  us  see.  As  sure 
as  God  is,  there  will  be  a  collapse.  The  rocket  went  up  with 
a  whiz ;  that  is  easy.  It  will  come  down  like  a  stick ;  that  is 
hard.  It  will  plunge  in  the  mire ;  that  is  hard.  It  will  be 
lost  in  contempt;  that  is  hard.  It  will  be  lost,  if  unrepent- 
ant, in  hell;  that  is  hard. 

But  what.  The  man  of  whom  I  am  speaking  does  not 
need  examples.  Does  not  need  observation  to  prove  it. 
Does  not  need  the  Bible  to  prove  it.  He  proves  it  himself. 
His  history  proves  it.  He  has  long  been  suspecting,  finding 
it  out,  but  now  his  eyes  are  wide  open.  Now  he  sees  that 
to  get  his  own  way  is  to  get  a  hard  way ;  the  worst  thing 
the  world  can  afford  him.  Now  he  sees  that  to  do  his  own 
will  is  not  to  take  the  road  to  Paradise,  but  to  the  swine- 
troughs  of  hunger,  of  misery,  of  abject  and  haggard  de- 
spair. 

In  Venice  there  is  a  bridge  which  connects  the  Doge's 
palace  with  the  ancient  prisons  of  the  State.  It  is  historic. 
All  have  heard  of  it — the  Bridge  of  Sighs— so  called  from 
the  sighing  and  the  tears  of  the  prisoners  as  they  were  led 
across  and  to  the  narrow,  low-browed  entrance  on  the  other 
side.  There,  is  a  dark  and  crooked  staircase,  down, 
down,  down.  And  from  its  corners  and  its  sides  rough 
stones  jutting  out  of  the  masonry,  now  this  side,  now  that 
side,  now  above  the  head,  against  which  the  bewildered 
blinded  prisoner  must  strike  and  bruise  himself.    Such  is 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  411 

the  path  of  sin,  of  every  path  of  sin,  the  going  down  is 
easy,  but  the  stones  of  providence,  the  stones  of  penalty, 
are  hard.  Bruised,  maimed,  broken,  helpless  the  sinner  lies 
at  the  bottom,  and  what  is  the  use  of  it  all?  And  why 
should  it  be  so?  This  the  awakened  sinner  takes  home. 
He  comes  to  himself,  and  what  does  he  say?  "Madness! 
In  me  is  the  madness.  Madness !  The  past,  that  is  mad- 
ness. My  record  is  madness.  Sanity,  reason,  salvation,  lie 
in  the  other  direction.  I  perish!  I  perish!  I  will  rise  up 
and  go!"    A  great  change  about  sin — and 

2dly.  About  salvation.  A  man  never  sees  the  good  of  a 
thing  till  he  wants  it.  And  he  never  sees  the  availability  of 
a  thing  till  he  really  wants  it.  "Hunger,"  says  some  one, 
"is  a  haggard,  but  a  healthy  thing."  It  makes  a  man  open 
his  mouth.  And  the  moment  he  opens  his  mouth,  the  trou- 
ble is  over ;  he  sees,  and  he  wonders,  where  were  his  eyes ! 
there  is  bread  enough  and  to  spare. 

Bread  enough!  "I  am  the  bread!"  Who  says  it?  God 
in  my  nature.  Infinite,  Infinite,  Infinite  God.  Bread  enough 
and  to  spare. 

And  to  spare!  Who  says  it  again?  Again  God.  "He 
spared  not."  Then  there  is  plenty  to  spare.  "The  Bread 
which  I  give  is  my  flesh ;  which  I  give  for  the  life  of  the 
world."   There  is  then  plenty  to  spare ! 

Now  hear  the  Gospel !  "God  so  loved  the  world  that  He 
gave  His  only  Begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
Him  should  not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life!" 

Look  at  that  text ;  analyze  it.  Your  heaven  is  in  it ;  your 
Salvation  is  in  it.  All  that  you  ever  will  need  in  time,  or  in 
eternity,  is  in  it.    How ! 

Why,  it  tells  you,  God  loves  you ;  that  He  looks  upon  you 
a  sinner,  in  love,  not  in  hate. 

And  that  He  so  loves  you  that  He  gives  to  redeem  you, 
not  a  world,  not  an  angel,  not  a  universe,  but,  what  is 
worth  more  than  10,000,000  worlds,  more  than  10,000,000 
angels,  more  than  10,000,000  universes,  His  Son,  His  ador- 
able, His  true.  His  only  Son.    He  spared  not  His  own  Son. 

And  what  does  that  tell?  It  tells  that  you,  a  lost  sinner, 
must  die  for  your  sins — "The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die," 
— unless  one  dies  in  your  stead.   In  your  stead,  and  that  is 


412  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  gist  of  the  text.  God  gave  His  Son  to  perish  that  who- 
soever believeth,  trusteth  on  Him,  consenteth  to  the  trans- 
action, should  not  perish. 

That  is,  God  put  His  Son  in  our  place,  in  order  that  we 
might  be  put  in  His  Son's  place.  "He  hath  made  Him  to  be 
sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin,  that  we  might  be  made  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  Him."  Is  that  clear?  God  puts  the 
sins  of  the  sinner  to  Christ's  account,  in  order  that  the 
merits  of  Christ  may  be  laid  to  the  sinner's  account.  God 
puts  our  badness,  all  of  it,  on  Christ;  that  He  may  put 
Christ's  blessings,  all  of  them,  on  us.  And  this  is  done  on 
the  instant,  the  moment  that  we  believe. 

"The  moment  a  sinner  believes 

And  trusts  on  His  crucified  God, 
Salvation  at  once  he  receives, 

Redemption  in  full  through  His  blood." 

Christ  then  stands  before  us,  on  the  tree,  our  Substitute. 
He  takes  our  place,  to  settle  all  accounts  for  us  with  God. 

He  does  this  and  He  cries,  It  is  finished!  Who  cries  it? 
God  cries  it.  How  cries  it?  Out  loud  He  cries  it,  loud,  very 
loud,  louder  than  any  preacher  ever  cried  it,  loud,  very  loud, 
So  loud  that  all  heaven  heard  it,  that  all  devils  heard 
it,  that  all  Jerusalem  heard  it.  Christ  was  earnest.  He 
meant  it.  Am  I  right  there.  Three  times  over  the  Evan- 
gelists say,  He  cried — xpa^ai  He  "shouted"  with  a  loud 
voice,  It  is  "finished,"  and  gave  up  the  ghost. 

Christ  said,  "It  is  finished !  /  save  on  the  spot."  Believe 
on  me ;  trust  your  concerns  to  me ;  cast  yourself,  body  and 
soul,  all  there  is  of  you,  on  me,  and  I  will  take  you  right 
up.  Your  part  will  be  finished ;  Mine  will  begin.  I  will 
keep.  I  will  strengthen,  will  sanctify — that  you  know  noth- 
ing of  now.  It  means  make  you  holy — I  will  do  that  little 
by  little,  not  all  at  once,  by  and  by.  I  will  lead  you  on  gen- 
tly. Yes,  lead  you  and  never  forsake  you  and  bring  you  at 
last  to  the  Land  where  sorrow  and  sin  are  no  more. 

That  brings  me  to  the  3d  point,  where  I  stop.  The  sinner 
changes  his  mind  as  to  the  time.  He  has  always  had  an  idea 
that  sometime  he  ought  to  go  back.  But,  "Now,"  he  says, 
"is  the  time.  This  very  day !  But  what,  this  very  moment ; 
I  will  arise  and  go." 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE.  413 

I  will  go  back,  just  as  I  am,  in  my  rags,  without  any  good 
clothes.  There  is  no  shop  here  at  which  to  buy  clothes.  If 
there  were  one  I  have  no  money. 

I  will  go  back,  just  as  I  am,  without  sending  them  word. 
I  have  no  paper  to  write  and  no  stamps  to  pay  postage. 

I  will  go  back  to  God  before  letting  Him  know.  I  will 
trust  before  I  utter  a  prayer.  I  will  trust  and  then  pray.  I 
will  pray  while  I'm  going,  but  I  will  start  now.  Now  be- 
fore my  heart  gives  me  the  slip ;  now  before  Satan  has  time 
to  seize  me  again.  I  will  go  right  back  to  God.  That's  it 
sinner.     Right  back.     May  God  help  you !     Now. 


414  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


FEW  THAT  BE  SAVED! 

Luke  xiii  -.23. 
"Then  said  one  unto  Him,  Lord,  are  there  few  that  be  saved?" 

To  be  saved,  does  not  mean  to  have  a  standing  in  the 
Christian  Church,  either  as  an  officer  or  member.  The  Church 
is  full  of  people  who  will  never  see  heaven ;  and  she  has 
at  her  head  many  leaders  who  are  no  better,  at  heart,  than 
Diotrephes,  than  Judas,  or  Demas.  I  knew  a  man — a  former 
church  official,  not  in  my  own  church,  but  in  one  of  the 
towns  in  which  I  have  preached,  who  came  to  me  and  con- 
fessed that  all  the  time  he  was  holding  office  and  was  go- 
ing in  and  out  among  the  people,  he  was  living  in  secret 
adultery — a  rank,  debauched,  unclean  and  horrible  life. 
"Oh,"  said  he,  "do  you  think  there  can  be  any  hope  for  me  Y* 

On  my  way  home  from  Europe  I  was  told  of  a  business 
man,  high  up  in  the  church,  his  counting-room  plastered  over 
with  illuminated  scripture  texts,  who  deliberately  does  busi- 
ness in  such  a  fraudulent  manner  that  no  man  can  bring 
him  to  time,  save  as  he  gets  some  legal  or  other  invincible 
clench  on  him.  To  be  saved  does  not  mean  to  have  a 
standing,  even  a  high  and  very  respectable  standing,  inside 
the  Christian  Church,  either  as  an  officer  or  a  member. 

To  be  saved,  does  not  mean  to  have  a  quiet  death-bed, 
God  allows  men  to  die  quietly,  even  the  worst  of  men,  be- 
cause He  will  not  anticipate  judgment,  and  because  He  will 
not  have  society  disorganized  by  the  shriekings  and  howl- 
ings  and  outcries  of  wicked,  impenitent  men,  going  down 
to  damnation.  In  a  world  where,  every  instant,  some  soul 
is  launched  into  eternity — 60  a  minute,  360  an  hour — such 
scenes  would  turn  society  into  pandemonium  and  the  world 
into  madness.  God,  with  only  here  and  there  an  exception, 
intended  to  point  some  tremendous  impression,  allows  the 
wicked  to  sink  down  to  death  as  into  sleep  and  quietly  as 
lambs, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  4*5 

To  be  saved,  does  not  mean  to  be  canonised  by  the  Church, 
or  preached  into  heaven  by  a  minister.  The  minister  himself 
may  not  be  on  the  road  to  heaven.  Good,  easy  man,  why 
should  he  not  make  the  way  easy?  Why  should  he,  at  a 
funeral  offend,  and  make  himself  trouble;  or  start  a  reflec- 
tion upon  his  own  worldliness? 

To  be  saved  is  actually  to  win  through  to  Heaven. 
Do  all  men  do  it?  Do  the  majority  in  Christian  communi- 
ties do  it?  Do,  anywhere,  any  large  number  do  it?  or  are 
there  FEW  that  be  saved  ? 

The  common  and  popular  opinion  is  that  most,  if  not  all, 
will  be  saved. 

This  appears — 

1.  From  the  judgments  which  men  form  and  constantly 
express  concerning  their  neighbors  and  concerning  the  course 
of  the  community  zuhere  they  reside. 

Men  know  that  other  men — that  men  around  them  must 
die.  However  they  cannot  imagine  it  concerning  them- 
selves, they  can  picture  the  hearse  drawn  up  at  the  doors  of 
their  neighbors.  They  know  that  in  a  very  few  years  all 
who  are  around  them  and  with  whom  they  associate  will 
have  passed  away. 

How  does  the  knowledge  affect  them?  Do  they  ever 
project  their  view  beyond  the  death-bed?  Do  they  ever  in- 
quire where  people  around  them  are  going?    Do  they  ever 

IMAGINE,  FOR  ONE  SINGLE  MOMENT,  THAT  ANY  WITH  WHOM 
THEY  COME  INTO  CONTACT  ARE  IN  DANGER  OF  GOING  TO  HELL  ! 

Is  there  anything  in  their  conduct  to  show  that  they  think 
so?  Nothing,  nothing  whatever.  They  eat  and  drink  and 
laugh  and  jest  and  walk  and  work,  without  ever  the  thought 
coming  into  their  minds  that  any  with  whom  they  do  these 
things  could  be  upon  the  road  to  hell. 

Does  the  common  opinion  admit  that  anyone  in  the 
world,  anywhere,  is  either  wicked  or  ungodly?  Hardly, — 
whatever  may  be  the  way  of  his  life.  He  may  be  a  Sab- 
bath-breaker; he  may  be  a  neglecter  of  the  Bible ;  he  may  be 
utterly  without  semblance  of  a  real  piety ;  he  may  be  openly 
vile  in  his  talk  and  profane ;  he  may  be  even  a  criminal,  con- 
victed of  crime.  What  matter?  His  friends  will  tell  you 
that  "we  must  not  be  uncharitable,  that  he  may  not  make  so 


416  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

much  of  a  profession  as  some,  but  that  he  has  a  good  heart 
at  bottom"  and  is  not  a  wicked  man. 

What  does  this  prove?  It  proves  that  men  flatter  them- 
selves that  salvation  is  easy.  That  they  are  plainly  of  the 
opinion  that  most  men  will  be  saved. 

2.  The  same  thing  appears  from  men's  judgment  con- 
cerning the  dead. 

Who  will  admit  of  any  departed  that  he  is  not  blessed  ? 
Is  it  not  the  common  consent  to  send  men  to  heaven?  Do 
we  not  know  that  it  matters,  apparently,  little  what  a  man 
may  have  been  ;  may  have  done  while  he  lived  ? — that  he  may 
have  been  notoriously  indifferent  and  careless ;  that  he  may 
have  lived  before  God  and  men  wholly  absorbed  in  the 
material,  wholly  occupied  with  the  interests,  the  pleasures 
and  the  fascinating  beauties  of  this  world,  without  betraying 
a  sign  of  regard  for  God,  or  of  the  fear  of  Him,  without 
repentance,  without  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  without 
the  trace  of  such  a  thing  as  walking  with  God,  or  an  effort 
toward  sanctification — that  he  may  have  lived  and  died 
"like  a  creature  without  a  soul" — that  he  may  even  have 
taken  his  own  life  and  rushed,  with  murder  upon  him, 
into  the  presence  of  his  Creator.  Yet,  as  soon  as  this  man 
is  dead,  people  will  begin  to  say,  will  they  not? — they  will 
even  dare  openly  to  say  it,  "Now  he  is  better  off;  he  is 
free  from  his  troubles,"  "Now  he  is  safe ;  he  is  happy,  he  has 
gone  to  a  better  world."  They  will  go  to  his  funeral,  and 
without  a  thought  of  the  dreadfulness  of  the  thing;  with- 
out a  shadow  of  the  "blackness  of  darkness"  into  which  he 
has  entered,  upon  them ;  without  any  fear,  without  any 
trembling,  without  any  shock,  they  will  follow  him  to  the 
grave,  themselves,  perhaps,  as  destitute  of  God  as  he  was, 
and  speak  of  "rest  for  the  weary"  and  of  the  "blessed 
change"  that  has  come  to  him,  and  this,  despite  the  fact 
that  when  he  was  alive  they  distrusted  him  and  suspected 
him  and  even  believed  him  to  be  a  bad  man.  I  put  it  plainly 
to  you,  my  brethren,  my  sisters,  is  not  this  so? 

3.  Another  proof  that  men  are  determined  to  have  it 
that  salvation  is  easy,  and  that  most  men  are  saved,  may 
be  drawn  from  the  general  opinion  and  expression  concern- 
ing ministers  who  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God. 

Suppose  a  minister  who  shall  stand  up  and  preach  hell, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  V7 

the  new-birth,  salvation  only  by  faith  in  the  Blood  and  the 
merits  of  Christ,  and  holiness — the  result  of  such  a  salva- 
tion !  Suppose  he  shall  insist  on  character  in  contrast  to 
profession,  and  that  without  holy  character  no  man  can 
see  heaven.  Suppose  he  shall  insist  that  men  be  pure,  and 
gentle,  and  honest,  and  true,  and  unselfish  like  Christ ;  that 
they  be  unworldly  as  He  was ;  that  they  be  decided  as  He 
was  and  refuse  to  compromise  wrong  or  strike  hands  with 
iniquity.  Now  all  these  propositions  are  plainly  the  fact 
and  pat  from  the  scripture.  There  is  no  question  that  they 
are  the  truth  of  Christ  and  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
were  He  on  earth,  would  preach  just  in  that  way.  But 
what  of  the  common  and  popular  opinion  ? 

Will  it  not  be  that  the  man  is  mistaken?  That  he  is  al- 
together "too  strict,"  "too  close,"  "too  severe."  that  the 
preaching  is  behind  the  times  and  old-fashioned?  Will  not 
the  people,  though  they  may  esteem  the  minister  and  highly 
respect  him,  still  insist  that  the  world  is  not  so  bad  as  he 
thinks ;  that  all  cannot  be  so  good  as  he  wishes ;  that  it  is 
not  expected  that  one  shall  follow  the  scripture  in  every- 
thing, that  there  is  a  question  about  some  texts  and  that, 
after  all,  we  must  be  charitable  and  take  it  that  somehow  all, 
or  most,  will  be  saved. 

Such  is  the  world's  notion.  We  know  that  it  is.  We 
know  that  the  common  and  popular  opinion  is  that  to  go 
to  heaven  is  easy,  and  that  the  most  of  men  will  be  saved. 

For  that  opinion  there  is  not  a  single  text  of  scripture, 
properly  interpreted.  For  it  there  is  not  a  single  reason 
which  will  bear  examination.  For  it  there  is  only  the  senti- 
ment of  the  false,  fallen  heart  which  wishes  to  have  it  so. 
Which  says,  "Let  us  go  with  the  crowd,  let  us  swim  with 
the  tide,  let  us  spare  ourselves  ridicule,  let  us  spare  our- 
selves trouble,  let  us  take  it  for  granted." 

To  be  saved  is  actually  to  win  through  to  Heaven. 
Do  all  do  it?  Do  the  majority  even  do  it?  Do  a  large  num- 
ber relatively  do  it?    Do  most  professors  of  religion  do  it, 

OR   ARE  THERE  FEW   THAT   BE   SAVED? 

We  hold  the  last  proposition.    What  do  we  mean  by  it? 

We  do  not  mean  that  the  number  of  the  saved  will  ulti- 
mately be  less  than  that  of  the  unsaved.  We  do  not  pic- 
ture to  ourselves,  nor  will  the  Bible  allow  u?  to  picture  ar 


418  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

miserable  remnant,  a  fragment  of  the  fallen  world  as  fol- 
lowing in  the  final  and  triumphant  procession  of  Jesus. 
"A  multitude  whom  no  man  can  number,"  millions  upon 
millions — millions  upon  millions  of  all  peoples,  nations  and 
languages — the  majority,  the  vast  majority  of  the  race 
will  undoubtedly  be  found,  at  last  in  heaven.  When  we 
consider  the  Millennial  ages  in  which  no  man  shall  say  to 
another,  "Know  thou  the  Lord,"  but  "when  all  shall  know 
Him,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest ;"  when  we  consider 
that  one-half  of  our  race,  at  least,  die  in  infancy,  and  that 
"as  without  their  knowledge  they  are  made  partakers  of 
the  condemnation  in  Adam,  so  without  their  knowledge, 
they  are  again  made  partakers  of  the  grace  of  Christ,*  and 
therefore  are  saved, when  we  consider  these  things  and  when 
we  lift  our  eyes  to  the  broad  horizons  of  God  and  consider 
that  His  purpose  with  our  race,  in  contrast  with  that  of  the 
devils  is  to  save  it  and  make  an  open  and  conspicuous  show 
of  victory  and  rescue  over  the  leagued  aims  and  armaments 
of  hell ;  we  must  believe  that — in  the  long  result,  the  num- 
V>pr  of  the  saved  as  compared  with  that  of  the  lost,  will  be  in 
vast  majority,  and,  perhaps,  in  the  contrast,  very  much  as 
the  number  dwelling  in  freedom  and  at  large,  in  the  com- 
munity is  to  the  felons  shut  up  in  our  prisons  to-day. 

But  the  question  is  not  of  the  ultimate  fact  nor  of  in- 
fants. It  is  the  nearer  and  practical  question  put  here  to 
Christ  concerning  adults  in  this  and  in  preceding  dispen- 
sations, and  before  the  coming  of  the  Lord. 

Are  There  Few  That  Be  Saved? 

Our  Lord's  answer  is  in  the  affirmative,  "The  gate,"  He 
says,  "is  strait.  Many  shall  seek  to  enter  in.  (He  does  not 
speak  of  those  who  do  not  seek).  Many  that  seek  to 
enter  in  shall  not  be  able."    Therefore  few  shall  be  saved. 

But  is  there  not  possibly  a  mistake  about  the  meaning  of 
these  words?     Are  we  shut  up  to  an  inference? 

Brethren,  sisters — Dearly  Beloved  ! — we  are  not.  Indeed 
we  are  not.  If  we  turn  back  to  Matt,  vii  :i3,  14,  we  shall  find 
the  statement  explicit,  "Enter  ye  in  at  the  strait  gate ;  for 
wide  is  the  gate,  and  broad  is  the  way,  that  leadeth  to  de- 


*Liturgy  of  the  Reformed  Dutch  Church. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  419 

struction,  and  many  there  be  which  go  in  thereat :  Because 
strait  is  the  gate,  and  narrow  is  the  way,  which  leadeth  unto 
life,  and  few  there  be  that  find  it." 

"And  few  there  be  that  find  it."  These  are  not  my  words, 
my  brethren.  The  Lord  is  my  witness  that  I  could  not 
speak  such  words.  They  are  to  me  too  solemn,  too  dreadful 
for  a  human  utterance,  nor  could  I  now  even  repeat  them 
did  I  not  believe  them  to  be  the  message  with  which  I  am 
charged  to  your  souls. 

Few  saved !  Is  it  the  fact,  "Feiv  there  be  that  find  it?" 
Are  these  words  reliable — are  they  the  ultimate  ? 

Let  us  consider :  They  are  the  words  of  Our  Lord  Jesus — 
the  words  of  Him  who  came  to  save  us,  who  came  even  to 
die  for  us  and  who  therefore  would  not  unnecessarily  dis- 
tress us  but  would  put  things  as  gently  as  could  be,  con- 
sistently with  the  truth. 

Yet,  if  they  are  the  words  of  our  Saviour  they  are  also 
the  words  of  Him  who  is  very  God,  "who  cannot  lie," 
whose  "words  shall  never  pass  away."  They  are  the  words 
of  Him  who  "knew  all  things  from  the  beginning,"  who 
"knew  what  was  in  man," — who  knew  things  to  come, — who 
was  to  judge  the  world — who  had  the  whole  scope  of  the 
future  before  Him — who  could  see  the  multitudes  about  the 
"shut  door"  and  hear  them  cry  "Lord  !  Lord  !  open  unto  us," 
and  who  felt  the  solemnity  of  every  syllable  He  uttered. 

And  what  do  these  words  mean !  Are  they  ambiguous ! 
Are  they  equivocal?  Are  they  like  some  dim  vision,  or 
vague  prophecy,  or  dark  Delphic  oracle,  or  abstract  meta- 
physics which  no  human  intellect  can  fathom?  Surely  they 
are  not.  The  words  are  clear,  plain,  unmistakable.  A  man 
does  not  need  to  know  Hebrew  or  Greek  to  understand 
them.  The  plainest  day-laborer  in  the  street,  on  hearing 
them,  will  at  once  tell  you  their  meaning.  They  have  but 
one  meaning  and  that  is,  that  many  people  will  be  lost 
and  that  few  will  be  saved. 

And  these  words  of  our  Saviour  are  borne  out  by  the 
whole  moral  history  of  mankind  down  to  this  moment. 
There  is  not  one  period  in  the  world's  history  in  which  the 
godly  people  were  many  and  the  ungodb-  few. 

How  was  it  in  the  days  of  Noah?  "The  earth."  we  are 
told,  "was  filled  with  violence."     "All  flesh  corrupted  his 


420  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

way."  The  loss  of  Eden  had  been  forgotten.  The  warn- 
ings of  God,  by  the  mouths  of  Enoch  and  Noah,  had  been 
despised.  When  the  flood  came,  but  eight  out  of  the  whole 
number  had  faith  to  flee  to  the  Ark.  Who  does  not  see 
that  at  that  time,  at  least,  there  were  few  that  were  saved. 

And  so  in  the  days  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Lot.  How  can 
we  believe  that  the  great  crowd  of  people  out  from  whom 
God  called  these  patriarchs  were  saved?  How  can  we  be- 
lieve that  the  millions  of  Babylon  and  Egypt  were  saved? 
How  can  we,  with  the  spectacle  of  a  burning  Sodom  before 
us,  believe  anything  else  than  that  the  godb-  were,  here  and 
there,  the  exceptions  and  that  there  were  few  that  were 
saved. 

Come  down  a  little  in  the  Old  Testament.  How  can  we, 
when  we  look  at  the  carcasses  of  Israel,  slain  through 
unbelief  in  the  wilderness,  think  anything  else  than  that 
then,  at  that  time,  there  were  few  that  zvere  saved? 

So  too  in  the  days  of  Judges  with  their  constant  apos- 
tacies,  and  in  the  days  of  the  Kings,  even  of  the  best  of 
them,  when  David  cries  "Help,  Lord,  for  the  godly  man 
ceaseth !"  Hozv  can  we  think  anything  else  than  that  few 
were  then  saved? 

So  too  in  the  days  of  the  prophets  which  ended  in  the 
captivity  and  when  the  bulk  of  the  people  refused  to  hear 
their  preaching;  when  God  through  the  lips  of  Jeremiah 
says,  "Run  ye  to  and  fro  through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem 
and  see  now,  and  know  and  seek  in  the  broad  places  there- 
of, if  ye  can  find  a  man,  if  there  be  any  that  executeth  judg- 
ment and  seeketh  the  truth  and  I  will  pardon  it,"  hozv  can 
we  think  anything  else  than  that  then  the  few  and  not  many 
zvere  saved? 

So  too  in  the  days  of  our  Lord.  "He  came  unto  His 
own;"  what  was  the  result?  "His  own  received  Him  not." 
"He  spake  as  never  man  spake  ;"  what  was  the  result  ?  They 
believed  Him  not.  He  wrought  miracles  calculated  to  con- 
vince the  most  incredulous;  what  was  the  result?  Thev 
were  hardened.  Follow  the  life  of  our  Lord  and  you  will 
easily  verify  this.  Trace  His  steps  as  He  passes  through 
the  uplands  of  Decapolis,  or  through  the  wilderness  of 
Judea,  or  into  the  synagogues  of  Nazareth  and  Capernaum, 
or  along  the  shore  of  Gennesaret.     Everywhere  it  is  the 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  421 

same.  The  multitudes  wonder  at  His  miracles.  They  fol- 
low after  Him  for  loaves  and  fishes.  They  now  applaud 
Him,  now  covertly  or  openly  deride  Him  saying,  "Is  not 
this  the  Carpenter's  son  ?"  They  believe,  yet  are  not  con- 
verted. It  is  a  belief  of  miracles;  "Jesus  did  not  commit 
Himself  unto  them."  They  assent,  and  then,  immediately 
after,  "go  back  and  walk  no  more  with  Him."  They  cry 
"Hosanna !"  and  then  hurry  Him  to  Pilate's  Judgment  hall. 
Offering  Himself  alike  to  Pharisees  and  Essenes,  to  Sad- 
ducees  and  to  Herodians.  the  effect  of  His  ministry  is  that 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  nation  comoines  to  re- 
ject Him  and  crowns  that  rejection  by  putting  Him  to  death. 

HOW  CAN  WE  THINK  ANYTHING  ELSE  THAN  THAT  THEN 
THERE   WERE  FEW   THAT   WERE   SAVED? 

But.  what  our  Saviour  affirmed  and  what  history  proves 
is  borne  out  by  the  state  of  things  under  the  preaching 
of  the  Apostles.  Xever  was  preaching  more  powerful  or 
pointed.  Xever  was  success  more  assured.  Xever  was  the 
Holy  Ghost  more  signally  poured  down  from  heaven.  Yet 
what  was  the  result?  We  find  from  the  Book  of  the  Acts 
that  true  Christians  were  then  "everywhere  spoken  against." 
That  in  no  city,  not  even  Jerusalem  itself,  were  they  more 
than  a  small  minority.  Follow  the  career  of  St.  Paul.  It 
is  not  that,  and  we  know  it.  of  a  leader  of  popular  crowds. 
We  read  of  perils  of  all  kinds  which  the  Apostles  had  to  go 
through ;  not  only  perils  from  without  but  from  within ; 
not  only  perils  from  the  heathen,  but  from  false  brethren. 
Furthermore,  we  see  plainly  from  the  Epistles  that  the  pro- 
fessing churches  were  mixed  bodies,  in  which  were  many 
rotten  members.  We  find  St.  Paul  thus  confiding  to  the 
Philippians  part  of  his  painful  experience.  ''For  many  walk 
of  whom  I  have  told  you  often,  and  now  tell  you  weeping, 
that  they  are  the  enemies  of  the  cross  of  Christ;  whose  end 
is  destruction,  whose  God  is  their  belly,  whose  glory  is  in 
their  shame,  who  mind  earthly  things."  How  can  we  in 
view  of  such  a  picture  believe  anything  else  than  that  the 
self-deceived,  as  well  as  the  gospel-rejecters  in  those  times 
were  many  and  that  few,  in  comparison  with  the  many,  were 
saved  ? 

If  we  drop  the  Apostles  and  come  down  to  our  own  day 
and  look  around  us,  how  can  we  ourselves  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that  few  and  not  many  are  saved? 


422  THE   DOCTRINES   OE    GRACE. 

When  we  consider  and  see  how  many  false  systems  there 
are  in  the  world,  as  Paganism,  Romanism,  Unitarianism 
(including-  Mohammedanism  and  Judaism),  all  of  which 
teach  salvation  by  merits  in  place  of  salvation  simply  and 
only  by  faith  on  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ! 

When  we  consider  how  many  there  are  outside  of  those 
systems  who  believe  in  salvation  by  the  free-will  and  by 
effort,  by  being  beforehand  with  God,  instead  of  submitting 
from  the  heart  unto  it.  "He  hath  mercy  on  whom  He  will 
have  mercy." 

When  we  consider  the  vast  amount  of  false  profession 
even  where  orthodoxy  is  acknowledged,  as  for  example, 
Antinomianism,  or  the  doctrine  of  grace  in  the  head  and 
not  in  the  heart!  "Beware,"  says  Bunyan,  "of  the  man 
the  unclean.  There  is  a  profession  that  will  stand  with  an 
unsanctified  heart  and  life;  the  sin  of  such  men  will  over- 
poise the  salvation  of  their  souls,  the  sin  end  being  heavier 
than  the  orthodox  end  of  the  scale ;  I  say,  that  being  the 
heaviest  end  which  hath  sin  on  it,  they  tilt  over  and  so  are, 
whose  head  swims  with  notions,  but  whose  life  is  among 
notwithstanding  their  glorious  profession,  drowned  in  de- 
struction and  perdition." 

How  many  are  there  in  orthodox  churches  whose  faces 
and  whose  conduct  show  the  spirit  of  the  world  and  whose 
associations  betray  that,  in  spite  of  all  their  profession, 
they  are  a  part  of  it? 

How  many  are  there  whose  interest  is  evidently  in  the 
externals  of  religion,  its  outward  activities,  its  bustling  van- 
ities and  not  in  its  essence? 

How  many  are  there  who  do  not  love  prayer,  who  do  not 
count  on  prayer,  who  do  not  live  a  life  of  secret  prayer  and 
of  conscious  communion  with  God? 

How  many  are  there  in  whom  is  evidently  a  spirit  of  mis- 
chief, of  envy,  jealousy  and  injury  to  others,  the  very  op- 
posite and  awful  contrast  to  the  spirit  of  Christ? 

How  many  are  there,  beneath  whose  lives  flows  an  under- 
current of  murmuring  and  mutiny  as  was  the  case  with 
Israel  in  the  wilderness,  in  place  of  thankfulness  and  the 
expression  of  a  constant  gratitude  to  God? 

From  all  these  facts  is  there  not  made  most  startlingly 
clear  the  truth  of  our  Saviour's  assertion,  "FEW  THERE 
BE  THAT  FIND  IT?" 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  423 

Now  what  is  the  upshot  of  this?  We  do  not  learn  a  fact 
out  of  God's  word  simply  to  know  it — but,  surely,  to  lay  it 
to  heart. 

Have  /  laid  it  to  heart?  God  knows  that  I  have.  God 
knows  how  this  subject  has  taken  hold  of  my  soul  more 
and  more  since  first  it  was  suggested  to  me  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.  God  knows  how  I  have  dropt  my  books  and  fallen  on 
my  knees  in  agony  and  cried,  ''Lord,  are  there  few  that  be 
saved?  Search  me,  oh  search  me."  Let  me  not  preach  to 
others,  myself  a  self-deceived  soul.  Let  me  not  alarm  others 
myself  unalarmed,  unconsciously  drifting  down  to  the  pit. 
Let  me  not  be  a  lost  minister  wjth  a  lost  flock. 

My  brethren,  my  sisters,  I  do  not  preach  without  tremb- 
ling.   I  do  not  lay  it  on  others.     I  lay  it  to  heart. 

What  then!  What  then,  if  we  lay  it  to  heart? 

Why  then — 

1.  We  shall  be  in  earnest  indeed.  We  shall  say,  "Are 
there  few?  Then  by  God's  help  and  His  blessing  I  will  be 
one  of  the  few."  Men  argue  that  way  about  earthly  good. 
The  fact  that  few  succeed  in  business — ninety-nine  out 
of  the  hundred,  I  believe,  who  start  in  for  themselves — does 
not  prevent  others  from  trying;  it  only  makes  them  more 
earnest.  I  had  been  preaching  in  St.  Peter's,  in  Rochester, 
one  day,  and  after  the  service  a  gentleman  came  up  and 
said,  "Are  you  a  son  of  the  Hon.  William  S.  Bishop!"  I 
answered,  "I  am!"  "Well,"  said  he,  "I  recollect  your 
father  when  he  made  his  start  in  religion.  It  was  in  a  re- 
vival. He  said  to  me,  'Chumasero,  I  do  not  know  what  you 
and  other  members  of  the  young  bar  of  Monroe  County 
may  do,  but  as  for  me  I  am  determined  on  going  to  heaven !' 
He  was  a  good  man.  God  bless  him ;  I  have  never  for- 
gotten his  words !" 

Ah !  Brethren.  Ah !  my  beloved,  let  us  be  one  of  the 
few.  Let  us  consider,  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  shall 
gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul  ?"  Oh  how 
shall  riches,  honors,  culture,  popularity  compensate  any  man 
for  a  Christless  eternity? — for  a  lost  soul? 

2.  Are  there  few  that  be  saved?  Do  we  realize  this  or 
do  we  only  hear  it?  If  we  realize' — take  the  fact  in,  then 
we  shall  fear,  then  we  shall  tremble — then  we  shall  secretly 
say  to  ourselves,  "I,  for  one,  will  look  into  this  matter.     I 


424  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

will  'give  diligence  to  make  my  calling  and  election  sure.' 
I,  by  God's  grace,  will  not  be  an  empty  deluded  professor — 
(for  it  is  of  professors  of  religion  that  our  Saviour  especial- 
ly speaks),  I  will  be  one  of  the  few."  Again:  If  we  realize 
the  fact,  we  shall  say,  Are  there  few,  and  why  are  there 
few?  Is  it  because  salvation  is  limited?  Is  it  because  Christ 
is  not  enough  for  all,  is  not  suited  to  all,  is  not  open  and 
offered,  and  pressed  upon  all? 

No,  surely.  The  straitness  of  the  gate  is  not  a  straitness 
of  provision  but  a  straitness  of  sincerity  in  the  sub- 
ject. Do  I  honestly  mean  to  believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  such  a  way  as  to  let  my  life  go  in  surrender — in 
such  a  way  as  truly  to  live  to  Him, — or  do  I  mean  to  trust 
Him  and  then  serve  my  own  self,  my  own  desires,  my  own 
indulgences,  my  own  and  other  men's  interests.  Do  I  mean 
it,  and  from  the  roots  of  my  being  up,  to  be  wholly  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ's? 

3.  Are  there  few  that  be  saved?  Then  whose  fault  is  it? 
Is  it  not  the  fault  in  great  measure  of  those  who  profess 
to  be  saved? 

My  brother,  my  sister,  for  what  one  soul  are  you  pray- 
ing just  now;  shut  up  to  it  that  God  shall  give  you  that 
soul?  Looking  out  for  that  soul,  that  lost  soul — that  lost 
wandering  soul,  as  a  shepherd  does  for  a  sheep  that  has 
wandered  away.  For  what  soul  are  you  looking  and  say- 
ing, "Lord,  shall  I  speak  to  him  now?"  "Lord,  send  the 
opportunity  !"  "Lord,  soon  let  me  save  him  !" 

My  brother,  my  sister,  revival  is  the  great  instrumentality 
that  gathers  in  souls.  How  much  do  you  pray  for  revival  ? 
How  alive  are  you  to  our  Saviour's  command,  "Launch  out 
into  the  deep  and  let  down  your  nets  for  a  draught?" 

There  may  be  few  that  be  saved,  but  it  is  not  the  fault  of 
the  Saviour.  It  is  the  fault  of  half-hearted  men.  It  is  the 
fault  of  us  Christians.  I  say  of  us  Christians  who  are  joined 
to  our  idols  and  careless  of  souls. 

There  may  be  few  that  be  saved,  but  there  shall  be  multi- 
tudes— multitudes  in  the  Reformed  Church  this  very  winter 
if  we  shall  only  be  devoted  to  this — if  we  shall  seek  the 
lost  soul. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  425 


A  PLEA  FOR  REVIVAL. 

"O  Lord,  I  have  heard  Thy  speech  and  was  afraid :  O  Lord 
revive  Thy  work  in  the  midst  of  the  years,  in  the  midst  of  the 
years  make  known ;  in  wrath  remember  mercy." — Hab.  iii  .2. 

The  spirit  of  Habakkuk,  in  reference  to  the  subject  which 
is  before  us  to-day,  was  the  spirit  of  fear.  "O  Lord,  I  have 
heard  thy  speech  and  was  afraid."  He  was  conscious  of  a 
stirring — of  something  unusual  in  the  air  around  him.  He 
had  been  upon  the  "watch,"  he  tells  us,  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  and  had  been  waiting  for  a  Vision  which  seemed 
to  tarry, — but  which  God  said,  should  not  tarry,  but  should 
surely  come. 

Meanwhile,  the  soul  of  the  prophet  had  been  gathering 
a  strange  solemnity.  He  felt  that  he  was  on  the  eve  of 
some  extraordinary  manifestation  of  God,  and  that  made 
him  afraid.  He  trembled,  his  lips  quivered ;  as  he  says  in 
verse  sixteen,  "rottenness  entered  into  his  bones."  He  felt 
his  unworthiness,  he  felt  the  burden  of  past  sin  which, 
though  God  had  forgiven  it,  he  felt  he  could  never  for- 
give, he  felt  his  foolishness,  his  unwisdom,  his  unfitness. 
He  was  afraid  too  of  his  attitude,  of  the  position  he  might 
be  tempted  to  take.  He  was  like  a  man  who  walks  under  an 
avalanche  when,  perhaps,  one  loud  word,  an  echo  in  the 
air,  may  bring  it  down.  He  was  afraid  because  God  was 
drawing  near.  He  did  not  wish  to  fight  against  God.  He 
was  afraid  of  his  actions,  his  conduct.  He  felt  it  was  a 
time  to  walk  softly,  to  be  much  alone,  much  in  heart-search- 
ing and  soul-humbling,  he  felt  he  was  safest  at  the  Mercy 
Seat  and  he  betook  himself  to  prayer,  to  prayer  not  for  him- 
self alone — nor  for  some  narrow  and  some  private  interest, 
but  for  the  public  interest,  for  that  one  great  and  universal 
interest  which  involved  God's  glory  in  the  shaking  and 
awaking  and  breaking  down  of  His  Church,  and  in  the 
widespread  and  general  conversion  of  souls.  Such  prayer 
as  that  could  have  but  only  one  utterance,  "Oh,  Lord  re- 
vive Thy  work  in  the  midst  of  the  years,  in  the  midst  of 
the  years  make  known ;  in  wrath  remember  mercy." 


426  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

"Revive  Thy  Work,  O  Lord, 
Thy  mighty  arm  make  bare 
Speak  with  the  voice  that  wakes  the  dead 
And  make  Thy  people  hear! 

"Revive  Thy  Work,  O  Lord, 

And  give  refreshing  showers, 
The  glory  shall  be  all  Thine  own, 

The  blessing  shall  be  ours. 

"Revive  Thy  Work,  O  Lord, 

Disturb   this    sleep    of    death, 
Quicken  the  smouldering  embers  now 

By   Thine   Almighty    breath." 

"A  prayer  of  Habakkuk,  the  prophet,  upon  Shigionoth: 
Oh  Lord,  I  have  heard  Thy  speech  and  was  afraid:  O 
Lord  revive  Thy  work !" 

I.  What  is  a  so-called  Revival? 

II.  What  can  be  said  for  it? 

III.  What  may  be  said  against  it? 

IV.  Toward  which  side  swings  and  ought  to  swing  the 
balance  of  desire? 

I.  What  is  a  so-called  Revival? 

1st.  It  is  an  excitement. 

2d.  It  is  a  religious  excitement. 

3d.  It  is  a  great,  and  may  be  an  extraordinary  excitement, 
an  excitement  rising  so  high  as  far  to  surpass  any  other 
excitement  which  can  be  produced  among  men. 

4th.  It  is  an  excitement  created  and  sustained  by  God  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

5th.  It  is  an  excitement  promoted  by  prayer,  and  which 
shows  itself,  in  its  first  symptoms,  in  a  desire  which  runs 
into  union  in  prayer — in  quiet,  but  in  determined,  persistent, 
importunate  prayer,  in  pleading  which  becomes,  at  length,  a 
very  intercession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  for  men,  with  groan- 
ings  that  cannot  be  uttered. 

6th.  It  is  an  excitement  greatly  stimulated  by  example. 
God  has  so  knit  the  human  family  together  "that  no  man 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  427 

liveth  to  himself  and  no  man  dieth  to  himself."  Example 
is  contagious.  No  soul  can  be  made  alive  unto  God,  but 
others  will  be  quickened.  No  man  can  be  broken  down  with 
weeping,  but  that  others  will  be  broken  down  with  him. 

President  Finney  tells  us  of  a  woman  in  a  certain  place 
in  this  very  State  of  New  Jersey  who  began  to  pray.  She 
was  convinced  that  there  was  going  to  be  a  revival.  She 
went  to  the  Minister  and  Elders  of  the  church  and  asked 
them  to  appoint  some  extra  meetings.  They  would  do  noth- 
ing about  it  for  they  saw  no  signs  of  revival.  The  woman 
was  not  discouraged.  Failing  of  the  church,  she  went  for- 
ward and  got  a  carpenter  to  make  benches  and  put  them 
into  her  own  house.  Scarcely  had  she  opened  her  doors  be- 
fore the  meetings  were  crowded  and  the  Holy  Ghost  came 
down  with  awful  power.  The  example  and  conviction  of 
this  woman  were  contagious  and  took  hold  of  the  whole 
towrn. 

President  Edwards  tells  us  that  the  tremendous  awaken- 
ing in  New  England  in  the  years  from  1735  to  1740,  began 
in  the  conversion  of  a  gay  young  girl  in  Northampton,  who 
was  a  ringleader  in  the  so-called  "frolics,"  gatherings  in 
which  freedom  was  carried  to  the  utmost  bounds  of  license. 
Her  conversion  was  a  public  shock.  No  one  believed  in 
her.  President  Edwards  himself  could  not,  at  first,  believe 
in  her — but  the  news  of  the  change  was  like  an  earthquake. 
It  shook  every  heart  in  the  town.  Especially  were  the 
young  people,  her  companions,  overawed  and  broken  down. 
"Presently  upon  this,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "a  great  and  earn- 
est concern  about  the  great  things  of  religion  and  the 
eternal  world  became  universal  in  all  parts  of  the  town,  and 
among  persons  of  all  degrees  and  all  ages ;  the  noise  amongst 
the  dry-bones  waxed  louder  and  louder,  all  other  talk  ex- 
cept on  spiritual  and  eternal  things  was  soon  thrown  by ;  all 
conversation  in  all  companies  and  upon  all  occasions  was 
upon  these  things  only  except  so  much  as  was  necessary  for 
the  transaction  of  unavoidable  business.  Other  discourse 
than  on  the  things  of  God  fell  dead.  There  was  no  interest 
in  it.  The  people  began  to  flock  to  church,  to  throng  and 
crowd  meetings  for  prayer,  and  the  work  of  conversion  in- 
creased and  went  on  in  a  most  astonishing  manner.  Souls 
came,  not  one  by  one ;  but,  as  it  were,  by  flocks  to  Jesus 


428  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Christ.     Such  was  the  force  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  using 
example." 

7th.  A  revival  then  is  a  great  and  glorious  and  holy  ex- 
citement on  the  subject  of  religion  keying  up  and  quicken- 
ing all  our  thoughts,  all  our  affections,  all  our  powers,  and 
uniting  us  in  a  superhuman  energy  and  intensity,  the  force 
of  which  is  brought  to  bear  on  sleepy  Christians  to  arouse 
them  ;  on  self  deceived  Christians  to  start  and  to  alarm  them; 
and  on  the  unconverted  who  make  no  profession  to  bring 
them  to  the  New-Birth. 

With  the  definition  thus  before  us,  let  us  consider : 

II.  What  can  be  said  for  Revival? 

1st.  It  is,  at  its  worst,  better  than  nothing.  Anything  is 
better  than  stagnation — than  death.  Without  revival,  the 
drunkard  goes  on  stumbling  through  the  dram-shop  door 
to  hell.  Without  it,  the  poor  harlot,  the  poor  lost  girl,  smiles 
upon  her  lips  but  the  undying  worm  already  gnawing  at 
her  heart,  still  flaunts  the  glaring  scarlet  of  her  sin  beneath 
the  gaslight.  Without  it,  Christians  fall  deeper  and  deeper, 
like  Noah  into  fleshly  indulgences  and  lusts  that  war  against 
the  soul.  They  eat  and  drink  and  sit  and  smoke  with  im- 
penitent, unconverted  sinners,  and  never  say  one  word 
about  Christ  to  them.  What  but  something  extraordinary 
indeed  will  shake  the  stupor  of  a  state  of  things  like  this? 

2d.  A  revival  of  religion  is  strictly  philosophical.  It 
commends  itself  to  human  reason  and  to  common  sense. 
For,  if  you  wish  to  change  any  bad  state  of  things  to  a 
better  you  will  have  to  begin  by  a  stir. 

To  expect  to  promote  religion  without  excitements,  in  a 
world  which  in  all  other  things  is  moved  by  excitement,  is 
foolish  and  absurd.  Take  politics,  take  trade,  take  any 
other  department  of  life,  men  calculate  on  excitements  in 
these.  We  talk  about  "a  revival  in  trade,"  "a  revival  of  in- 
terest in  public  affairs."    Why  not  in  religion? 

Do  we  ever  know — did  you  ever  know  such  a  state  of 
things  in  the  Church,  as  was  witnessed  a  week  or  two  since 
in  the  Produce  Exchange,  when  men  bawled  themselves 
hoarse,  and  ran  the  risk  of  splitting  their  lunes  and  bring- 
ing on  a  hemorrhage  in  their  frantic  efforts  and  shoutings  ? 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  429 

Do  we  ever  know — did  you  ever  know  such  a  state  of 
things  in  the  Church  as  has  been  common  enough  of  late 
in  our  streets,  when  men  of  one  party  and  of  another  have 
gone  along  marching  with  banners  and  gestures,  music  and 
sineing  and  cries  at  the  height  of  political  fervor? 

The  Church,  even  at  the  very  loudest  of  the  loudest  Meth- 
odism, is  an  exceedingly  tame  affair;  tame,  tame  indeed,  in 
comparison  with  politics  and  with  trade. 

But  understand  me,  I  would  find  no  fault  with  the  excite- 
ment incident  to  politics  and  trade,  for  excitements  are  ger- 
mane to  human  nature,  and  the  man  incapable  of  excite- 
ment on  great  moral  and  social  and  national  questions  is 
not  worthy  to  be  called  a  man,  he  is  not  a  man,  he's  a 
clothes-horse. 

"Lives  there   a   man   with   soul   so  dead 
Who  never  to  himself  has  said 
This  is  my  own,  mv  native  land." 

So  in  other  things.  Excitement  is  germane  to  human 
nature.  For  what  is  excitement?  It  is  only  human 
nature  keyed  up — set  on  fire,  and  the  man,  incapable  of  high 
and  sustained  moral  as  well  as  physical  feeling  is  not  a 
man,  he's  a  stick.  He  lacks  the  energy,  the  nerve,  the  hero- 
ism and  the  dare  which  make  a  man ;  nor  can  any  man 
do  his  best  until  he  is  keyed  up  and  strained  to  his  highest, 
nor  can  any  party  or  body  of  men  or  church,  or  nation  do 
its  best,  till  put  on  its  mettle  and  put  on  the  strain. 

3.  Revivals  of  religion  are  particularly  needful  in  a 
fallen  world.  When  things  have  already  fallen  and  are  still 
running  down,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  pull  up! 

Revivals  are  a  pull  up,  on  nature.  They  presuppose  what 
will  always  be  true  of  us  left  to  ourselves,  what  was  true 
of  Seth's  descendants,  of  Israel,  of  the  Pentecostal  Church 
— declension.  Human  nature.,  like  a  clock,  runs  down,  and 
whatever  will  wind  it  up,  on  any  large  scale,  must  wind 
with  more  than  a  human,  a  Divine  resolution  and  vigor. 

This  point  becomes  more  solemn  when  we  consider  that 
human  nature  not  only  runs  down,  but  that  Satan  entering 
into  it.  as  into  the  swine  of  Gennesaret,  urges  it  down. 
Every  little  while  there  comes  an  epidemic  of  gayety,  or 


430  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

of  betting  and  gambling,  or  of  drunkenness,  or  of  impurity ; 
or,  as  at  the  present  time,  in  the  pulpit  and  out  of  the  pul- 
pit, the  literary  phase  of  drawing-room  infidelity.  Shoals 
of  books  filled  with  the  darkest  and  most  dangerous  skepti- 
cism, all  the  darker,  all  the  more  dangerous  because  set 
forth  in  forms  and  words  of  a  seductive  culture,  are  now 
being  published  and  read  by  all  classes,  from  highest  to 
lowest.  You  can  scarcely  buy  a  popular  novel  of  the  better 
class  at  present  that  L  not  only,  say,  Christless,  but  sneer- 
ingly  and  more  or  less  covertly  infidel.  Not  immoral  only, 
as  in  former  days,  but  infidel,  atheistic.  Paralysis  toward 
God  is  largely  due  to  these  Satanic  books.  It  is  a  mania, 
a  craze. 

Now  the  only  way  to  meet  excitement,  great  excitement, 
is  by  a  counter-excitement.  When  the  enemy  comes  in  like 
a  flood  there  is  no  adequate  remedy  save  as  "the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  shall  lift  up  a  standard  against  him." 

4th.  Revivals  are  a  necessity  for  the  Church. 

One  thing,  to  open  the  blind  eyes  of  the  deluded  and  the 
self-deceived — of  professors  of  religion  who  indulge  in 
secret  sin,  or  who  have  but  a  fancied  and  superficial  ex- 
perience. Almost  always,  in  a  revival,  some  professors  of 
religion  are,  for  the  first  time,  converted.  Nothing  short  of 
this  avails  to  wake  them  up.  Revival  is  indeed  a  time  of 
heart-searching,  a  season  of  solicitude  and  questioning  like 
that  represented  in  Isaiah,  "The  sinners  in  Zion  are  afraid, 
fearf ulness  has  surprised  the  hypocrites :  who  among  us 
shall  dwell  with  the  devouring  fire?  Who  among  us  shall 
dwell  with  everlasting  burnings?"' 

But,  beside  unmasking  hypocrites,  revivals  of  religion 
are  a  necessity  for  the  maintaining  and  the  progress  of  the 
Church.  There  is  so  little  fixedness  of  principle  among 
professors  of  religion.  So  little  unflinching  purpose  of 
heart,  so  little  of  the  Daniel-like  element  in  any,  in  the  best 
of  men — we  are  so  swayed  by  what  we  think  our  worldly 
interest,  so  affected  by  the  wave  of  social  sentiment  and  the 
expression  of  human  opinion,  so  moved  by  sneers  and  in- 
uendoes,  caricatures,  and  the  light  laugh,  so  wedded  to  and 
inter-married  with  friends  whose  influence,  like  that  of 
Lot,  is  always  a  snare,  a  clog,  a  temptation  and  a  seduction 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  43* 

— above  all,  we  are  so  abominably  lazy,  indolent,  slothful 
and  flesh  pleasing  in  the  ways  of  God,  that,  unless  excited, 
started  as  by  an  explosion  out  of  our  seats,  we  shall  sink 
back  from  any  downright  honest  exertion,  backslide  and 
do  nothing  but  play  at  the  forms  of  religion  without  mean- 
ing business  at  all. 

We  are  so  time-serving,  too.  So  ashamed  of  the  Gospel. 
So  afraid  to  have  our  names  associated  with  an  unpopular 
movement;  or  with  an  unpopular  and  hated  cause,  or  man, 
or  Church,  or  system — no  matter  how  good — even  though 
it  were  Paul,  or  even  Christ  Himself,  if  all  men  did  not 
speak  well  of  Him — that  there  is  needed  something  on  the 
other  side,  something  from  heaven  to  convince  us  again 
of  the  supernatural,  something  from  hell  to  make  us  afraid 
of  disloyalty  and  of  a  Demas-like  or  Judas-like  desertion, 
and  so  nothing  short  of  revival  and  recurring  revival,  and 
revival  with  power,  can  break  the  crust  of  iciness  and 
wordliness  which  forms  upon  our  stupid  and  lethargic — 
dreamy  souls,  and  make  eternity  real. 

"How  long  and  how  often,"  says  an  acute  observer,  "has 
the  experiment  been  tried,  to  bring  the  Church  to  act  stead- 
ily for  God  without  these  periodical  excitements.  Many 
good  men  have  supposed  and  still  suppose  that  the  best 
way  to  promote  religion  is  to  go  on  uniformly  and  gather 
in  the  ungodly  gradually  and  without  excitement,  but  how- 
ever plausible  such  reasoning  may  appear  in  the  abstract, 
facts  are  altogether  against  it."  Left  to  itself,  for  any  long 
period,  there  is  no  Church  on  earth  that  will  not  decay  and 
run  down. 

5th.  More  can  be  done  for  God  in  a  time  of  revival  than 
at  any  other  time.  The  common  sense  of  this  is,  that  great 
masses  of  men  when  moved  together  in  a  wedge-like  union 
can  accomplish  more  than  can  any  one  man.  A  land-slide 
rushing  down  a  mountain  is  mightier  than  a  single  stone. 

But  more :  the  heat  is  greater  and  the  energy  more  tre- 
mendous. Small  communities,  sporadic  efforts  can  never 
effect,  what  whole  populations  can  effect,  as  when  in  Ephe- 
sus,  as  we  read  (Acts  xix:i9) — they  brought  all  the  bad 
books  and  magical  books  in  the  city  together  and  burned 
them. 


432  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

In  time  of  revival,  men's  minds  are  clear  and  conscience 
quick  and  then  is  the  time  to  lift  things.  President  Edwards 
tells  us  that  after  the  Work  of  Grace  in  New  England, 
things  never  went  back.  Social  customs  and  sinful  prac- 
tices were  laid  aside  which  have  never  been  revived,  nor 
known  in  Northampton,  nor  in  New  England  since  that 
hour. 

Look  at  that  great  revival  called  the  Reformation !  In 
300  years  we  have  never  been  able  to  change,  in  one  sen- 
tence, the  phraseology  of  the  Creeds  which  then  were  writ- 
ten. So  high  and  clear  a  view  did  men  obtain,  under  the 
white  light  of  that  excitement,  of  the  things  of  God.  If  you 
want  the  Rum-shops  cleaned  out  of  this  town,  begin  to  pray 
for  something  that  will  shake  to  pieces  the  old  conservatism 
and  old  selfishness  and  make  new  sentiment — pray,  not  for 
reform,  but  for  something  deeper  than  reform — Revival! 


6th.  Revivals  have  always  been  God's  way.  Now  God 
would  never  choose  a  way  which  is  not  a  wise  way.  It  is 
not  without  reason  therefore  that  God  has  from  time  to 
time  created  excitements  and  chosen  this  method  of  work- 
ing, by  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  promote  true  religion.  While 
men  are  so  unwilling  to  obey  God  as  they  are,  they  never 
will  act  until  they  are  thoroughly  stirred  and  excited.  How 
many  there  are  in  every  community  who  know  they  ought 
to  come  out  on  the  Lord's  side  but  who  are  afraid,  if  they 
do,  they  will  be  laughed  at  by  their  old  friends  and  com- 
panions. How  many  are  the  slaves  of  incurable  habit,  how 
many  are  wedded  to  gold,  fashion,  pleasure  or  to  other 
idols,  how  many  are,  and  for  years  have  been  playing  fast 
and  loose  with  religion,  with  an  eye  still  fixed  on  worldly 
gains.  Such  persons  will  never  give  up  their  timidity,  their 
cowardice,  they  will  never  get  power  over  their  greed,  their 
ambition  until  they  are  so  excited,  so  shaken  by  the  very 
atmosphere — so  shaken  over  everlasting  hell,  the  horrors 
of  the  burning  lake,  that  they  cannot  but  startle  and  cry. 
But  in  order  to  sinners  being:  shaken,  saints  must  be  shaken, 
Elders  shaken,  Deacons  shaken,  Christ's  own  people  shak- 
en. God  does  not  raise  dry  bones  in  dormitories  nor  until 
we  set  to  work  to  roll  away  the  stone. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  433 

7th.  Revivals  of  religion  are  an  advantage  and  a  vast 
blessing  because  Christians  born  again  in  revivals  are  worth 
more,  as  a  rule,  to  God  and  the  church.  One  thing,  they 
have  a  higher  standard.  Another  thing,  they  get  momentum 
at  the  start.  Another  thing,  they  are  nerved  and  strung  to 
higher,  nobler,  more  disinterested  feeling  and  can  never 
be  satisfied  with  that  veneering  of  the  spiritual  life  which 
goes  with  a  traditional  religion,  and,  under  the  respectable, 
self-satisfied  morality  of  which  the  larger  part  of  modern 
professors  of  religion  are  drifting  slowly  down,  unsaved, 
to  everlasting  death. 

So  much  can  be  said  in  favor  of  revival,  now, 

III.  What  may  be  said  against  it  ? 

1st.  If  things  be  stirred  up  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  Satan 
will  be  stirred  up  as  well.  The  Devil  will  come  down  hav- 
ing great  wrath,  because  he  knows  his  time  is  short — he 
will  come  down  out  of  the  air,  where  he  is  invisible,  and 
he  will  become,  as  it  were,  visible  by  all  the  frantic  efforts 
which  he  will  put  forth  to  prevent  the  sleeping  church  from 
being  awakened,  and  unconverted  souls  from  fleeing  from 
the  wrath  to  come. 

2d.  In  a  revival  the  devil  will  stir  up  the  world  and 
worldly  Christians  to  sneer  at  earnestness  and  covertly  to 
mock  at  efforts ;  and  this  will  frighten  the  timid  so  that 
though  they  know  the  work  to  be  the  work  of  God,  as  well 
as  they  would  know  it  if  an  angel  came  down  out  of  heaven 
to  tell  them,  yet  they  will  draw  back  and  sell  Christ,  and 
prove  more  openly  neglectful  and  disloyal  than  they  would 
have  done  had  there  been  no  revival  at  all. 

3.  True  Christians  will  be  likely  to  act  worse  as  well 
as  better  in  time  of  revival. 

Of  course  if  men  are  excited  they  will  talk,  and  sur- 
face Christians  will  talk  the  most  and  talk  the  loudest — 
and  talk  not  in  the  confession  of  sin  and  past  unfaithful- 
ness, but  in  the  way  of  the  criticism  of  others — and  in  the 
multitude  of  such  words  as  these,  there  will  not  fail  to  be 
sin. 

Even  under  the  most  solemn  appeals  from  the  pulpit,  as 
it  were  under  Sinai  itself,  men,  instead  of  taking  home  the 


434  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

truth,  silently,  solemnly,  prayerfully,  will  begin  to  discuss 
and  debate  and  apologize  for  themselves  and  "fit  the  cap,'' 
as  they  say,  to  one  another  and  so  dissipate  each  rising, 
hopeful,  spiritual  feeling  and  drown  the  working  in  them 
of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

4th.  In  Revival,  the  devil  will  particularly  watch  his 
chance  to  foment  envy,  puff  up  vanity — bring  some  men 
to  take  offence  where  no  offence  was  intended,  where  he 
himself  has  to  make  and  fancy  and  foster  the  offence, — 
in  a  word,  to  divide ;  especially  to  turn  men's  minds  away 
from  praying  for  a  Baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost — from  mak- 
ing Pentecost  work  of  it,  and  fix  attention  on  some  other 
and  inferior  and  minor  end.  In  order  to  do  this  Satan  will 
use  Self — unhumbled  Self — self-righteous  Self — Self  that 
cannot,  like  Daniel  make  itself  Nobody  in  order  that  God 
alone  may  be  exalted. 

5th.  In  a  Revival,  there  is  far  more  fear  that  some  man 
will  commit  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost. 


This  sin  is  of  two  kinds : 

(1.)  That  committed  by  people  outside  of  the  Church, 
by  the  unconverted.  It  is  the  sin  of  wilful  impenitence,  of 
wilful  intelligent  rejection  of  Christ  under  great  light.  It 
is  what  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  "sinning  away  one's 
day  of  grace."  Gospel  rejectors  make  their  damnation 
the  deeper  under  Revival  because  the  motives  brought  to 
bear  are  so  much  more  tremendous. 

(2.)  The  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  is  committed  by 
people  inside  the  Church  who  speak  against  the  work  and 
misrepresent  and  oppose  it,  as  those  people  in  the  Gospel 
who  called  Christ  Beelzebub  and  his  miracles  the  works  of 
Beelzebub.  Men  get  to  talking  and  their  tongues  run 
away  with  them,  and  before  they  know  it  they  have 
said  something  which  carries  them  across  the  line  of 
of  God's  forbearance  and  their  doom  is  sealed.  Of  course 
such  men  were  never  truly  born  again ;  there  was  a  mistake 
somewhere ;  only,  in  that  direction,  there  is  a  finger-post 
on  which  there  reads :  "Beware !" 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  435 

6th.  In  revival  some,  perhaps  many,  are  deceived.  This 
is  so.  because  it  must  be.  would  be,  so  at  any  time.  Demas, 
converted  quietly,  was  just  as  truly  lost  as  were  Ananias 
and  Sapphira.  Xo  possible  precaution  will  keep  out  the 
tares.  Only  this  much  is  to  be  claimed  for  revival,  that 
self-deception,  upon  every  ground  of  sound  and  honest  rea- 
soning, is  far  less  likelv  under  white,  intensified  and  probing 
light. 

Thus  having  looked  at  the  subject  from  both  sides,  for 
and  against,  we  come, 

IV.  To  the  end  of  the  case,  to  sum  up.  The  balance 
is  for  the  Revival.  In  spite  of  all  the  seeming  disad- 
vantages, the  advantages  so  greatly,  so  infinitelv  prepon- 
derate, that  we  must  cry  out  with  Habakkuk  and  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  Habakkuk,  "Oh*  Lord,  revive  Thy  work !" 

1st.  God  will  be  glorified — no  doubt  of  that.  Read  on 
in  Habakkuk — "O,  Lord,  revive  Thy  work."  "O.  Lord, 
make  known."  "in  wrath  remember  mercy."  then  what? 
See  in  the  very  next  verse.  "God  came  from  Teman,  the 
Holy  One  from  Mount  Paran.  His  glory  covered  the 
heavens,  and  the  earth  was  full  of  His  praise." 

2d.  God  zi-ill  break  don-n  all  opposition  to  the  progress 
of  His  own  work. 

The  greatest  and  most  formidable  opposition  will  come 
from  inside  the  Church,  from  the  "elder  brother"  who  can- 
not quite  see  it.  or  who  says:  "What  will  become  of  me?"' 
and  "Where's  my  kid?"  "In  revival."  said  Mr.  Champness, 
the  other  day  at  the  Manchester  Convention,  "if  the  devil 
cannot  get  some  of  his  own  people  to  throw  a  stone  at  you, 
he  will  get  a  Christian  to  do  it,  but  no  harm  will  come  if 
you  just  keep  on  with  your  eye  fixed  on  God." 

Two  or  three  winters  ago.  the  Spirit  of  God  was  evi- 
dently felt  in  a  certain  Church,  not  in  this  town.  Two  or 
three  began  to  pray,  a  poor  handful,  as  is  the  case  when 
God  intends  to  stain  the  pride  of  human  glory. 

The  minister  fell  in  with  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  ap- 
pointed more  meetings  and  began  to  preach  for  revival. 
All  at  once,  one  of  the  officers  of  the  church  stood  up  and 
opposed  him. 


436  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

The  minister  was  not  disturbed.  "Mr.  So  and  So,"  he 
said,  "You  know  what  the  Church  exists  for  in  a  fallen 
world.  You  know  that  her  only  dependence  is  the  Gospel 
and  prayer.  You  know  that  I  am  doing  my  best  to  preach 
a  pure  gospel  and  to  get  these  people  just  as  often  as  I 
can,  and  where  I  can,  upon  their  knees  to  pray  for  Holy 
Ghost  power.  In  that  work  you  ought  to  back  me  and 
with  all  your  soul ;  but  if  not,  if  you  oppose  me,  I  shall 
leave  you  to  God.  I  am  not  afraid  of  you.  You  cannot 
harm  me,  you  cannot  even  ruin  this  work.  I  have  seen 
such  cases  too  often.  You  will  only  ruin  yourself  by  your 
opposition  to  God." 

The  work  went  on,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost  came  down, 
and  one  of  the  first  men  smitten  was  that  very  officer 
with  whom  the  minister  had  dealt  so  openly,  so  honestly,  so 
faithfully,  and  he  broke  down,  confessed  his  fault,  asked 
for  the  church's  prayers,  and  then  went  to  work,  and  no 
man  was  more  used  of  God  than  was  that  very  man  in  that 
revival. 

God  will  break  down  all  opposition  to  His  own  work. 
See  verses  6-10,  "The  mountains  saw  Thee  and  they 
trembled,  the  flood  of  the  waters  went  over  them,  the  deep 
uttered  his  voice  and  lifted  up  his  hands  on  high !" 

3d.  In  Revival,  God  will  save  multitudes.  He  will  go 
forth  for  salvation — for  salvation  with  His  anointed.  See 
Habakkuk  iii  :i3- 

4th.  In  revival  God  will  deepen  in  the  hearts  of  His  oziii 
people  conviction  of  sin.  Total  depravity  then  will  be  seen 
to  be  more  than  a  flippant  expression.  Christians  will  be 
bowed  down  and  humbled  before  God.  Like  Isaiah  they 
will  cry  "Unclean !  Unclean !"  Like  Habakkuk  here,  they 
will  say,  "When  I  heard,  my  belly  trembled,  my  lips  quiv- 
ered at  Thy  voice,  my  old  sins  came  back,"  "the  sins  of 
mv  youth,"  as  Job  says — "rottenness  entered  into  my 
bones."  Revival  always  results  in  the  higher  consecrated 
life  of  some  at  least  of  the  people  of  God. 

5th.  God  in  Revival  fills  His  Church  with  joy.  He 
restores  the  years  the  canker-worm   hath   eaten  and  sets 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  437 

every  stringed  instrument  in  tune.  "A  prayer  of  Habak- 
kuk  upon  Shigionoth  (v.  i),  "many  tunes,"  and  upon 
Neginoth  (vs.  19  and  margin),  "hand  instruments"  like 
harps  and  tambourines  and  cymbals.  No  joy  this  side 
heaven  can  compare  with  that  of  saving  souls ! 


438  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

SHUT  UP  TO   FAITH. 

"Shut  up  unto  the  faith  which  should  afterwards  be  revealed." 
—Gal.  3  -.23. 

The  difference  between  other  religions  and  that  of  the 
Bible  is  a  difference  of  faith  and  no  faith.  "Children  in 
whom  is  no  faith"  is  the  inspired  description  of  apostate 
man. 

And  destitute  of  this  true  principle,  the  religions  of  the 
world,  however  else  they  differ,  hold  a  counter-principle  in 
common.  They  proceed  on  self-development  and  self-im- 
provement. Pagans,  Mohammedans,  Jews,  Formalists,  and 
what — among  us,  are  called  liberal  Christians — all  agree, 
and  all  embark  together  on  the  notion  that  hidden  deep  in 
fallen  man  is  something  upon  which  to  build,  and  that,  by 
building  on  this  something — tears,  compunctions,  resolu- 
tions, a  pure  life,  disinterested  efforts — they  can  either  rec- 
ommend or  help  to  recommend  themselves  to  God. 

We  must  not  imagine  that  the  doctrine  of  merit  is  con- 
fined to  Pagans,  to  Jews,  to  Mohammedans,  to  Formalists 
alone.  The  world  is  full  of  it.  The  heresy  runs  through 
the  veins  of  human  nature — it  taints  the  very  fibres  of  the 
unregenerate  soul. 

Even  within  Christian  and  Evangelical  communions 
men  are  not  free  from  it.  Thousands  of  unconverted  men 
in  all  our  churches,  notwithstanding  their  knowledge  of 
orthodox  creeds,  and  notwithstanding  their  subscription  to 
orthodox  creeds,  have  something  else  in  their  minds  to 
recommend  them  to  God  and  to  make  their  future  safe  be- 
fore Him,  beside  faith  in  Christ's  righteousness. 

I  do  not  now  speak  of  extreme  and  positive  teaching — of 
that  which  broadly  pivots  merit  as  the  fulcrum  of  our  peace 
with  God.  I  do  not  now  speak  of  this,  but  of  a  softer  and 
a  more  seductive,  and  more  dangerous  delusion — of  one 
under  which  many,  who  are  saved  in  the  issue,  long  labor 
with  sorrowful  trouble  of  soul — namely  the  notion  that, 
after  all,  mixed  up  with  Jesus  Christ,  there  is  needed 
something  else  than  Christ  to  make  peace  perfect. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  439 

Now  genuine  experience  everywhere,  and  in  all  ages  and 
in  every  voice,  declares,  "This  is  not  so."  The  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul  declare  "It  is  not  so."  The  Mosaic  Ritual  de- 
clares "It  is  not  so."  All  the  doctrines  that  lie  under  and 
bear  up  the  word  of  God  declare  "It  is  not  so." 
Protestantism  standing  on  the  word  of  God  declares  "It  is 
not  so";  but  that  men  are  justified  by  faith — by  nothing 
before  faith,  by  nothing  along  with  faith,  by  nothing  after 
faith ;  but  by  faith  pure  and  simple,  by  faith  as  a  mere 
instrument,  by  faith  only.     As  the  Apostle  says,  ''They  are 

SHUT  UP  TO  FAITH. 

If  we  shall  turn  to  the  third  chapter  of  Galatians  and 
read  down  to  verse  18,  we  shall  find  it  shown  in  six  im- 
perial arguments,  that  men  are  not  justified  by  law- 
work — that  is  effort.  Out  of  these  arguments  the  ques- 
tion naturally  arises,  "Wherefore  then  serveth  the  law?" 
What  is  it  good  for?  This  the  Apostle  answers  in 
verses  19,  22  and  23.    The  law  has  three  great  functions. 

1.  It  shows  transgression — points  sin  to  the  soul.  If  I 
am  carelessly  crossing  a  vacant  lot,  and  all  at  once  I  come 
across  a  sign-board  which  says,  "Persons  found  upon  this 
lot  will  be  prosecuted  for  trespass !"  immediately  I  know 
I  am  guilty  of  trespass.  So,  if  I  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  slandering  my  neighbors,  talking  about  them  recklessly 
behind  their  backs,  and  I  hear  the  Ten  Commandments  say 
"Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness !"'  immediately  I  find 
myself  a  sinner,  in  a  point  of  which  I  had  thought  very 
little,  if  at  all,  before.  This  is  the  first  function  of  the 
Law.  "It  was  added,"  says  the  Apostle.  It  was  not  a 
part  of  the  original  equipment.  You  know,  when  a  horse 
has  been  harnessed  and  all  is  ready,  the  livery  keeper 
brings  out  a  whip  and  puts  it  in  the  socket.  The  whip  is 
not  an  original  part  of  the  establishment  of  the  equipment. 
If  the  horse  would,  he  could  get  on  without  the  whip.  But 
he  will  not,  and  so  the  whip,  and  so,  for  us,  the  law — be- 
cause we  will  not  run  to  God — is  added.  It  is  not  needed 
to  save.  The  Covenant,  the  Promise  is  sufficient,  but  be- 
cause we  will  not  trust  the  Promise,  law  comes  in.  It  is 
added  to  point  out  transgressions,  to  make  plain  to  us  our 
sins. 

2.  That  is  the  first  thing — verse  19,  Conviction — then  we 


440  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

have  another  (verse  22),  Penalty.  We  are  condemned. 
That  ends  it.  Of  itself  the  Law  can  do  no  more  for  us. 
It  brings  in  an  indictment,  it  pronounces  a  sentence  from 
which  there  is  no  escape. 

"In  vain  we  ask  God's  righteous  law 

To  justify  us  now; 
Since  to  convince  and  to  condemn 

Is  all  the  law  can  do." 

3.  But  by  these  two  things — Conviction,  Condemnation 
— the  Law  prepares  us  for  Christ.  Shut  up  in  prison,  when 
the  door  is  opened  by  the  Gospel,  the  Law  just  drives  us, 
smokes  us  out  of  nature's  burrow,  and,  like  conies,  hunted 
creatures,  we  take  refuge  in  the  Rock.  "Before  faith 
came,"  says  verse  23,  we  were  kept  under  the  Law — a 
stern,  vindictive  jailor — "shut  up  unto  the  faith,  which," 
like  an  open  door,  "should  afterwards  be  revealed." 
"Wherefore,  the  Law  was  our  schoolmaster,"  whip  in 
hand,  "to  bring  us,"  limping,  whimpering,  reluctant  "unto 
Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified  not  by  the  whip-stock, 
but,  as  we  might  have  been,  days,  weeks,  years  sooner, 
"by  faith/-' 

A  simple  faith  in  Christ  saves.  "Only  believe !"  But 
since  it  is  the  greatest  "only"  in  the  universe,  too  great 
an  only  for  a  dying  bed,  where  shall  we  get  this  faith? 
What  are  its  sources  ?  From  what  does  it  come  ?  May 
God,  for  His  dear  Son's  sake,  make  the  answer  to  this 
question  useful  and  emancipating  to  our  souls. 

From  what  does  Faith  come?  From  four  things. 
From  sense  of  danger,  sense  of  duty,  sense  of  helplessness, 
and  from  the  effectual  working  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

I.  Faith  comes  from  sense  of  danger.  It  is  folly,  in 
seeking  a  cause  to  stop  short  of  this.  Men  will  never  go 
to  Jesus  Christ  until  they  are  driven  to  Him,  and,  in  going, 
they  will  procrastinate  and  linger  like  Lot's  wife,  and 
cling  to  the  last  twig  until  the  flames  of  hell,  running  along 
the  ground  behind  them,  burn  it  from  their  hands.  Warn- 
ings, all  through  the  Scripture,  are  God's  method  of  stir- 
ring men  to  salvation.  They  were  His  method  with  the 
Antediluvians.    They  were  His  method  with  Nineveh.   They 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  44 1 

were  His  method  with  the  men  of  John  the  Baptist's 
generation.  They  were  His  method  in  the  great  Reform- 
ation. They  were  His  method  in  all  those  deep  and  solemn 
revivals  which  laid  the  foundations  of  the  piety  and  probity 
of  our  fathers.  "Flee  from  the  wrath  to  come !"  is  the 
herald  voice  that  precedes  every  enunciation  of  mercy. 

Objection  First.  If  this  be  so,  why  do  not  ministers 
preach  so? 

Reply  i st.  Faithful  ministers  do  preach  so  and  always 
have  preached  so.  God  has  never  left  Himself  without  a 
witness.  In  all  the  ages  men  have  cried  aloud  and  spared 
not,  and  lifted  up  their  voice  in  trumpet  tones  to  warn  the 
unconverted  of  their  doom. 

Reply  2d.  All  ministers  do  not  preach  the  danger  of 
Hell,  because  all  ministers  are  not  converted.  "Of  the 
tribe  of  Levi  were  sealed  12,000."  Probably  the  proportion 
of  ministers  saved  is  no  greater  than  the  proportion  of 
communicants.  No  more  of  Levi  than  of  any  other  tribe. 
If  a  minister  himself  has  never  seen  the  danger  how  can 
he  depict  it? 

Reply  3d.  Ministers  while  they  are  called  to  preach  the 
danger  of  hell,  are  not  called  to  preach  it  all  the  time ; 
nor  always  most  directly.  Every  one  knows  that  the  direct 
method  fails  after  a  time.  We  are  not  to  pull  on  one 
string  only,  but  on  a  thousand.  Men  who  are  employed  in 
a  powder-mill  get  used  to  explosions.  Familiarity  blunts 
them  to  the  reality  and  fear  of  alarm.  So  when  a  minister 
preaches  terror,  he  blunts  and  hardens  sensibility,  however 
true  his  words. 

Added  to  this,  there  are  other  things  needful  beside  the 
salvation  of  men — the  actual  plucking  of  men  as  brands 
from  the  burning.  The  unsaved  have  no  right  to  all  our 
attention.  A  minister  is  a  pastor  and  teacher,  a  shepherd 
as  well  as  an  Evangelist.  Our  business  is  also  to  instruct 
and  build  up,  and  lead  forward  the  saved — to  open  the 
whole  Word  of  God,  and  to  care  for  the  whole  estate  of 
the  church.  Therefore,  while  hell  keeps  burning  under 
the  feet  of  unconverted  souls,  and  ministers  know  this, 
they  are  not  bound  always  and  everywhere,  in  every  word 
they  utter,  to  assert  it. 


442  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Objection  Second.  But  if  church  members  know  that 
those  around  them  dwell  in  such  unutterable  peril,  why 
are  they  not  earnest? 

Reply  i  st.  Some  of  them  are  earnest.  Dr.  Torrey  is 
earnest.  Ralph  Wells  is  earnest.  Wanamaker,  of  Phil- 
adelphia, is  earnest.     Many  are  earnest. 

Reply  2d.  Some  Christians  are  disabled,  overworked, 
spent  by  the  very  effort  to  lift  up  the  warning  cry.  It  is 
no  easy  thing  for  flesh  and  blood  to  stand  upon  the  margin 
of  eternity — survey  its  aw  fulness,  describe  its  solemnity 
and  emphasize  its  doom.  Too  much  of  this,  even  those 
who  are  themselves  saved  from  it,  cannot  endure. 

Reply  3d.  Christians  no  doubt  grow  weary  when  they 
are  at  heart  sincere.  A  man  may  rush  from  his  house 
to  the  scene  of  a  midnight  conflagration.  He  may  seize  a 
bucket,  and  for  a  while,  work  with  an  almost  superhuman 
energy,  but  as  the  hours  pass  on  and  the  flames  do  not 
cease  spreading,  that  man,  although  he  knows  that  prop- 
erty and  life  are  still  in  peril,  will  tire ;  he  cannot  help 
tiring;  he  may  even  sit  down  on  a  horse-block  to  rest,  and 
not  be  indifferent  either. 

But,  how  about  the  man  who  raises  these  objections?  I 
know  that  it  is  quite  the  custom  for  the  unconverted  sinner 
to  find  fault  with  ministers  and  Christians  for  their  lack 
of  honesty  and  earnestness,  but  I  deny  his  right  to  do 
this.  Why  should  any  other  man  be  more  interested  for 
your  soul,  my  friend,  than  you  yourself  are?  Surely  your 
soul  is  worth  as  much  to  you  as  it  is  to  any  of  the  rest 
of  us.  Surely  you  know  the  facts  of  the  case  as  well  as 
we  do.  Surely,  whatever  other  men  may  do  or  not  do,  God 
will  hold  you,  and  you  alone  responsible  if,  trusted  with 
a  soul  of  priceless  worth  and  boundless  destiny,  you  drop 
that  soul,  between  the  fingers  of  prevaricating  indecision, 
into  hell!  Danger!  Danger!  Sense  of  danger!  The 
thought  that,  after  all,  I  may  wake  up,  "after  life's  fitful 
fever,"  in  the  everlasting  burnings,  is  the  earliest  spring 
of  faith. 

TI.  Faith  springs  from  a  sense  of  duty.  We  are  "shut 
up  to  faith."    "This  is  His  commandment  that  we  should 


THE    DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  443 

believe  on  the  name  of  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ.*'  Possibly 
some  of  us  mav  recollect  an  incident  which  occurred,  not 
long  ago,  upon  an  English  railway.  A  pointsman  stood  at 
his  station  near  the  entrance  of  a  tunnel  and  his  little  son, 
a  boy  of  five  or  six  years,  was  playing  near  him,  but  with- 
in the  tunnel  and  between  the  rails.  All  at  once,  and  un- 
expectedly, the  thunder  of  a  train  was  heard,  and  the  glare 
of  the  headlight  was  thrown  down  upon  them.  The  father 
dared  not  leave  his  post ;  nor  could  he  reach  the  boy.  There 
was  but  one  alternative.  Quick  as  a  thought  he  shouted 
"Fall  flat  upon  your  face  and  do  not  stir!**  The  boy  did 
so,  and  the  train,  which  carries  no  catcher,  and  runs  high 
upon  its  wheels,  lightly  passed  over  him  without  touching 
a  hair. 

Xow,  in  this  action  of  the  boy,  observe  four  things. 

(i.)  A  recognition  of  the  superiority  of  the  parent — of 
his  right  to  command.  The  boy  might  not  have  done  the 
thing  for  any  other  man,  but  he  had  been  taught  obedience 
to  his   father. 

(2.)  The  boy  recognized  the  fact  that  his  father  knew 
better  than  he ;  he  submitted  his  judgment  to  his  father's. 

(3.)  The  boy  saw  that  not  to  obey — to  brave  the  situa- 
tion— would  be  death;  he  must  be  dashed  into  a  million 
atoms. 

(4.)  Should  the  boy  refuse  to  obey,  his  destruction 
would  be  his  own  fault. 

The  boy.  therefore,  quick  as  thought,  obeyed  his  father, 
without  stopping  to  reason,  and  was  saved.  Trusting  to 
what  his  father  said,  and  acting  on  it,  saved  him.  He  was 
saved  by  faith.  Xow  let  us  use  the  story  for  an  illustration 
of  the  case  in  point.  Sinners  are  to  believe  in  Christ,  just 
from  the  sense  of  duty,  just  because  God  tells  them  to  be- 
lieve. 

(1.)  God  is  our  Father.  He  has  created  us.  He  has 
made  every  atom  in  us  and  of  us,  and  has  an  absolute  right 
over  us  to  command  us  as  he  pleases.  Sovereigntv  is  the 
righteous  power  to  compel.  That  sovereigntv  resides  in 
God.  When  He  tells  us  to  believe,  therefore,  or  to  do  any- 
thing else,  we  are  bound  to  obey  Him. 


444  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

(2.)  God  knows,  better  than  we,  what  will  save  us,  and 
if  He  tells  us  to  believe,  we  may  be  sure  it  is  best  to  obey. 

(3.)  God  will  certainly  punish  us  if  we  refuse  to  obey. 
The  boy,  in  the  story,  might  possibly  have  jumped  the  track 
— escaped  the  engine  and,  afterward,  escaped  punishment 
from  his  father ;  but  we  cannot  escape ;  how  shall  we  escape, 
if  we  neglect  so  great  salvation? 

If  we  had  not  been  told  to  believe,  we  must  have  been 
punished,  on  the  ground  on  which  the  heathen  will  be  pun- 
ished, viz. :  of  not  living  up  to  our  light.  But  now  that  we 
have  heard  the  gospel  we  shall  be  punished  10,000  times 
more  severely  on  the  new  ground  that  we  have  refused  a 
new  provision  and  disobeyed  a  new,  positive  precept. 

(4.)  The  sinner  who  refuses  to  believe  becomes  a  de- 
liberate suicide.  The  heathen  is  not  a  deliberate  suicide. 
He  is  like  the  boy  who  has  carelessly  wandered  on  the  track 
and  is  not  aware  of  his  doom.  The  heathen  is  not  the  guilty 
author  of  his  own  destruction  as  is  he,  who,  standing  in 
the  gateway  of  Eternity's  dark  tunnel,  and  with  Hell's 
nearing  and  premonitory  headlight  blazing  down  upon  him, 
still  refuses  to  believe  on  Christ.  To  refuse  to  believe, 
then,  is  the  greatest  sin  that  fallen  man  can  commit.  This 
is  the  sin  under  the  Gospel  that  destroys  man — not  ignor- 
ance ;  not  immorality,  but  unbelief. 

We  are  to  believe  in  Christ,  because  it  is  our  duty :  because 
we  are  told  to  do  it :  because  we  cannot  go  wrong  in  doing 
it,  because  we  must  go  wrong  if  we  do  not  do  it,  and 
be  forever  to  blame  for  our  own  self  destruction.  I 
wish  to  impress  this  fact  upon  you,  brethren,  that  the  only 
reason  and  warrant  for  believing  on  Christ  is  that  we  are 
told  to  believe  on  Him.  All  other  reasons,  while  they  may 
act  as  motives,  are  mere  corollaries  and  conclusions  from 
this.  The  great  reason,  the  lever-principle  which  God 
brings  to  bear,  is  this:  "You  are  bound  to  believe  upon 
Christ,  because  I  tell  you  to  do  it.  I  have  the  right  to  tell 
you  to  do  it.  You  are  lost  if  you  do  not  believe  since  I  tell 
you  to  do  it.  Your  blackest  sin  to  all  eternity  will  be  that 
you  did  not  believe,  when  I  told  you  to  do  it."  The  only 
reason  why  a  sinner  is  bound  to  trust  Christ  is  that  God 
offers  Christ  and  commands  the  sinner  to  trust.  The  rea- 
son for  trusting  is  nothing  whatever  in  us,  it  is  altogether 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  445 

outside.  God  offers  to  save  us,  not  for  the  good  there  is  in 
us,  but  for  the  bad  there  is  in  us,  not  for  any  qualifications 
we  have,  but  for  Christ.  Before  then,  we  have  any  fitness, 
or  any  compunction,  or  any  repentance,  or  any  taste  or  love 
for  things  Divine,  we  are  to  trust  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
And  we  are  to  find  all  our  ground  and  our  warrant  for 
trusting  in  just  what  God  says.  Faith's  first  spring  and  rea- 
son is  God's  naked  word.  Cold,  dead,  blind,  stupid,  worldly 
and  without  desire  or  relish  for  things  spiritual,  we  are  to 
trust  in  Christ  on  the  spot,  because  we  are  told  to,  and  just 
as  we  are. 

We  must  begin  with  Faith  and  not  make  faith  in  Christ 
the  end  of  any  law- work.  If  God  intends  to  put  us  through 
any  law-work,  any  process  of  prolonged  and  deep  conviction 
He  will  do  that  without  any  interference  or  effort  of  ours. 
He  will  save  us  first  and  teach  us  afterwards.  We  then 
have  nothing  to  do  with  preparing  ourselves.  We  have 
not  to  make  ourselves  feel  bad,  or  sorry  or  penitent.  We 
have  only  to  look  up  and  out,  as  lost  sinners,  and  trust. 
Faith  in  Jesus  Christ  is  the  fountain  from  which  must  flow 
all  fruits  of  holiness.  Not  one  fruit,  not  one  little  bit  of 
a  thing,  that  God  will  accept,  can  we  bring  to  Him  until 
we  have  trusted  in  Christ.  Be  as  religious  as  you  please, 
my  Brother ;  be  as  busy  as  you  please ;  as  devoted  as  you 
please ;  as  pains-taking  as  you  please ;  as  determined  as  you 
please ;  heap  high  you  floral  altar,  you  are  only  a  Cain,  a 
fugitive  and  a  vagabond  in  the  earth,  until  you  believe. 

Believing  comes  first.  Believing  saves.  Believing  is 
everything.  "Without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please  Him." 
We  are  shut  up  to  faith! 

III.  Faith  is  begotten  from  a  sense  of  helplessness.  The 
true  religion  goes  upon  the  ground  that  there  is  nothing  in 
us  to  build  upon.  That  the  flesh  is  simply  incurable  and  that 
we  are,  by  nature,  nothing  but  flesh.  That  we  never  will  be 
any  better,  that  we  never  can  be  any  better  than  we  are 
to-day  let  us  resolve  what  we  please ;  let  us  inaugurate  what- 
ever process  of  improvement  we  have  a  mind  to.  The  true 
religion  goes  upon  the  ground  that  man  is  dead,  and  that 
the  dead  can  neither  give  themselves  a  resurrection,  nor 
any  faint  experience  of  what  a  risen  life  may  be,    "As  well 


446  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

attempt  to  produce  heat  by  looking  at  snow,  light  by  looking 
at  darkness,  wealth  by  looking  at  poverty,  health  by  looking 
at  disease,  or  life  by  looking  into  the  grave's  mouth,"  as 
attempt  to  produce  anything  of  a  spiritual  character  by 
looking  to  self  for  it.  When  I  look  at  self  I  look  at  some- 
thing which  God  has  condemned;  at  something  with  which 
He  will  have  nothing  to  do ;  at  something  on  which,  in 
every  member,  He  has  written  a  Death-Sentence.  How  can 
reading  a  Death-Sentence  give  me  either  peace,  satisfac- 
tion or  power? 

But  ought  I  not  to  have  "godly  sorrow,  which  worketh 
repentance"  before  trusting  in  Christ  ?  Certainly  not.  You 
cannot  have  "godly"  sorrow  until  you  are  a  godly  man,  and 
you  can  never  be  "godly"  until  you  have  submitted  to  God, 
and  obeyed  Him  by  trusting  in  Christ.  Faith,  is  the  be- 
ginning of  all  godliness  and  of  everything  godly.  There 
is  no  use  in  deceiving  yourself — you  are  Cain,  and  nothing 
but  Cain  until  you  believe.    "He  justifieth  the  ungodly." 

You  are  utterly  helpless,  and  you  never  will,  and  never 
can  be  any  better — work  over  and  with  your  fallen,  Satan- 
like, nature  as  long  as  you  please.  In  this  state  of  the  case, 
there  is  nothing  to  do  but  trust.  You  are  sure  to  be  lost  if 
you  do  not  trust — God  tells  you  to  trust  and  you  can  do 
nothing  else — You  arc  shut  up  to  Faith? 

The  burning  of  the  hotel  at  Oshkosh,  Wis.,  recently  re- 
ported, furnishes  an  illustration  here.  WThen  the  flames 
broke  out,  a  certain  Mrs.  Harlow  happened  to  be  visiting  a 
friend  whose  room  was  sixty  feet  above  the  street.  Both 
ladies,  hearing  a  tumult,  rushed  into  the  hall,  which  they 
found  filled  with  smoke.  Quickly  they  rushed  back,  ran  to 
the  windows  and  appealed  to  the  crowds  gathered  below 
for  help.  Their  appeals  apparently  disregarded,  they  rushed 
into  the  hall  again,  but  this  time  were  driven  back  badly 
burned  by  the  flames.  "Only  one  hope,"  report  says,  "was 
left  and  that  a  leap  sixty  feet  to  the  pavement,  and  only 
God  could  lend  the  hope  thus  to  reach  safety."  We  can 
imagine  Mrs.  Harlow  standing  at  that  window.  Death  by 
fire  behind  her.  Death  by  concussion  in  all  probability  be- 
fore, and  yet,  with  this  latter  probability,  a  possibility  of 
escape.  We  can  imagine  her  mind  fixing  on  the  slender 
pivot  of  that  possibility,  then  the    duty,    the    wife's    and 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  447 

mother's  love,  the  growing  and  heroic  resolution,  the  sub- 
lime courage  which  impelled  her  to  creep  through  the  win- 
dow, cling  to  the  slender  sill,  drop  through  the  air  and  wake 
to  find  herself  caught  by  the  robes  and  blankets  held  be- 
neath. A  feeling  of  utter  helplessness  urged  her  to  ven- 
ture a  bare  possibility.  A  feeling  of  helplessness  in  like 
manner  urges  the  sinner  to  venture  what  is  no  possibility, 
nor  probability,  but  what  is  assured,  unfailing  certainty, 
when  he  is  called  to  trust. 

IV.  Faith  is  the  working  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Faith 
which  trusts  a  Saviour,  is  the  "gift  of  God."  But  this  gift 
comes  to  us  invisibly  and  even  insensibly.  Even  before  we 
are  aware,  we  are  willing  to  trust. 

Faith  is  not  always,  perhaps  not  often  an  impulse  sud- 
denly felt  in  the  soul.  Usually  we  drift  off  to  Christ.  From 
unwilling,  we  become  willing.  We  find  ourselves  reminded, 
in  a  thousand  ways,  of  the  unsubstantial  nature  of  the 
things  around  us.  We  desire  something  more  solid,  more 
real,  more  lasting.     We  are  shut  up  to  Christ. 

A  weary  sense  of  the  world's  emptiness,  felt  first,  per- 
haps, beneath  the  shadow  of  some  terrible  bereavement, — 
a  lacerating  loneliness, — the  need  of  some  kind,  sympathiz- 
ing heart,  some  Great  Consoler,  sets  thought  running  in  the 
direction  of  Christ. 

The  recognized  infirmities  of  age — that  one  is  now  de- 
scending the  western  slope  of  life's  hill — tottering  down  to 
the  last  sunset  with  no  Guide,  no  Helper,  no  Strong  Arm 
to  be  beneath  him  in  the  breaking  up  of  the  strong  con- 
stitution, in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  makes  him 
turn  over  inwardly  the  importance  of  trusting  on  Christ. 

Or  the  contrast  to  this — the  sun-start  of  life's  golden 
morning — the  view  of  the  wide  future,  the  thought  of  liv- 
ing without  Christ,  of  growing  up  without  Him,  of  taking 
the  most  serious  steps  without  Him,  of  deciding  destiny 
without  Him,  seems  so  awful  that  the  young  boy  feels,  the 
young  girl  feels,  that  he,  that  she  must  now  begin,  and  that 
it  cannot  be  too  early  to  trust  Jesus  Christ. 

The  Holy  Spirit  uses  these  thoughts,  rather,  inspires 
them.  The  Holy  Spirit  presses  our  danger,  presses  our 
duty,  presses  our  helplessness  to  save  ourselves.    The  Holy 


448  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Spirit  shows  us — frail,  dying  creatures  that  we  are — the 
need  of  Christ.  He  shows  us  the  consolation  and  the  com- 
fort which  there  are  in  Christ.  He  shows  us  that  we  can 
lose  nothing  and  must  gain  everything  by  trusting  Christ. 
He  shows  us  how  reasonable  a  thing  it  is  to  trust  Him,  that 
there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  we  should  not;  but,  on 
the  contrary,  that  we  ought  to  have  done  it  years  ago;  and 
that  it  is  senseless  and  absurd  in  us,  as  well  as  ungrateful 
and  shameful  not  to  do  it  now. 

The  Holy  Spirit  shows  to  us  the  promise  of  God.  He 
presses  upon  us  the  condition,  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved !"  "He  that  believeth  on  the 
Son  of  God  hath  life,  and  hath  it  everlastingly."  The 
Spirit  of  God  moves  us  to  trust.  Softly,  gently,  but  per- 
sistently He  moves  us.  Even  though  we  resist  Him,  we 
cannot  shake  Him  off.  Why  should  we  wish  to  shake  off 
the  persuasions,  the  kind,  importunate  persuasions  of  the 
Lord,  the  Holv  Ghost? 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  449 


FAITH  VICTORIOUS  OVER  DEATH  WRITTEN  ON 
THE  PROMISE. 

Rom.  iv:ig-2i. 

"And  being  not  weak  in  faith,  he  considered  not  his  own  body 
now  dead,  when  he  was  about  an  hundred  years  old,  neither  yet 
the  deadness  of  Sarah's  womb;  he  staggered  not  at  the  promise 
of  God  through  unbelief  but  was  strong  in  faith  giving  glory  to 
God ;  and  being  fully  persuaded  that,  what  He  had  promised  He 
was  able  also  to  perform." 

Abraham  is  the  model  of  the  supernatural  man — the 
example  of  a  supernatural  working.  Of  course  Abraham  is 
of  no  value  at  all  to  natural  men.  His  principle  teaches  them 
nothing — his  method  cuts  clean  across  the  spirit  and  the 
grain  of  their  methods.    He  is  their  contrast. 

It  is  only  in  the  Church  that  such  a  man  as  Abraham 
counts  for  anything  and  it  is  only  to  spiritual  men  in  the 
Church  to  men  of  real  faith  like  Abraham  that  the  lessons 
of  his  life  bear  home  with  any  more  than  momentary  im- 
pression. 

But  to  men  like  Abraham  the  lessons  do  bear  home — 
for  Abraham  is  made  of  God  the  pattern,  type  and  paragon 
of  spiritual  living.  We,  the  faithful,  shall  never  get  above 
Abraham,  the  "Father  of  the  faithful" — we  shall  never  ar- 
rive at  any  better  principles  or  methods  of  the  supernatural 
life  than  those  which  he  exemplifies.  He  was  given  to 
teach  us  the  great  lesson  of  trust  in  God  in  the  face  of 
difficulties,  and  that  it  is  faith,  not  talents,  not  zeal,  not 
resolutions,  not  earnestness — not  natural  advantages — the 
vote  for  instance  of  society — or  the  help  of  money  or  majori- 
ties— not,  in  the  first  place,  holy  affections — self  discipline — 
reforms ;  or  preaching  of  reforms ;  but  faith  that  every- 
where saves  us  and  conquers  success — as  it  is,  in  reversal  of 
this,  unbelief — "staggering"  or  the  spirit  of  question — of 
cavil — of  discount  that  everywhere  defeats  and  damns  us. 

I  would  like,  as  it  were,  to  throw  up  all  the  windows  in  the 
Church  to-dav  and  jjet  in  a  fresh  breeze  of  Heaven  that  will 


45o  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

fill  all  our  lungs — put  vigor,  tone  and  quickness  into  the 
circulations  of  our  blood  and  lift  and  broaden  the  whole 
spiritual  man  to  a  new  prospect — in  the  face  and  across  the 
front  of  natural  impossibilities — of  the  horizon  of  God. 
I  would  just  like  all  of  us  to  stand  before  the  parched  and 
perpendicular  Rock  that  bars  our  entrance  into  Canaan, 
and  see  that  Rock  melt  into  water  under  the  appeal  of  faith 
and  the  refreshed  Israel  put  upon  a  new  march  from 
Kadesh — this  time  not  to  play  the  part  of  spies  upon  the 
land — or  to  go  about  like  detectives  to  see  if  we  can  not 
discover  in  God  some  secret  mistake  or  unfaithfulness — 
but  boldly  and  in  the  Spirit  of  a  frank  and  generous  con- 
fidence to  march  upon  a  Canaan  already  made  our  own. 

And  so  let  us  consider — these  points  in  the  text, — 

I.  Abraham  had  the  promise  of  a  sure  success. 

II.  That  promise  was  in  the  face  of  natural  impos- 
sibilities. 

III.  Abraham  did  not  consider  the  impossibilities  but 
the  promise. 

IV.  Faith  in  the  promise — that  only — carried  him 
through. 

I.  Abraham  had  the  promise  of  a  sure  success.  He  had 
the  promise  of  salvation — "I  will  be  a  God  to  thee."  He 
had  the  promise  of  a  posterity — "Thy  seed  shall  be  as  the 
sand  on  the  seashore  innumerable."  He  had  the  promise 
of  Canaan — "from  the  river  of  Egypt  into  the  great  river, 
the  river  Euphrates" — this  promise  as  St.  Paul  tells  us  in 
Rom.  iv:i3,  was  so  widened  in  its  intention  as  to  make 
him  the  heir  of  the  world. 

Now  notice — 

This  one  great  and  comprehensive  promise — including 
the  three  particular  promises  of  Salvation,  Seed  and  King- 
dom— was  not  based  on  anything  in  Abraham  himself,  or 
anything  he  was  to  be  or  do ;  but  only  on  the  one  condition 
— that  he  should  receive,  believe  and  follow  it. 

And  notice  again — 

The  special  test  of  his  faith  as  a  genuine  working  principle 
did  not  turn  on  salvation  but  on  success,  including  increase 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  451 

— growing  numbers,  and  a  Kingdom ;  i.  e.,  whether  he 
could  trust  God  for  the  actual  temporal  working  of  the 
spiritual  principle  or  not — in  other  words — it  was  not  about 
his  soul — whether  he  should  be  saved  or  not ;  but  it  was 
about  support  and  confirmation — whether  he  should  have 
Isaac,  Jacob  and  a  Seed  or  not — whether  he  should  win  and 
possess  Canaan  or  not — a  prosaic,  everyday,  and  practical 
— as  you  see — kind  of  faith. 

The  point  I  am  making — the  nail  I  am  driving — from  the 
word  of  God — is  that  the  test  of  Abraham's  faith — whether 
it  was  genuine  or  not — whether  it  was  approved  of  God 
or  not,  turned  not  upon  an  indefinite  future  but  on  the 
definite  present — not,  in  a  vague  and  general  way,  on  heav- 
enly things ;  but  in  a  pointed  and  practical  way — on  what 
we  call  secular  things — the  having  a  child — the  actual  pos- 
session of  a  certain  region  and  district  of  country. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  soul,  the  spiritual  things 
were  left  out  of  Abraham's  faith — far  from  that — but  that 
the  test  of  its  genuinenss  as  to  the  far  and  the  spiritual,  lay 
in  the  near  and  the  temporal — that — whether  our  professions 
about  trusting  our  souls  upon  God  are  true  or  not  will  be 
determined  by  whether  we  are  able  to  trust  Him  for  actual, 
tangible  things  given  here  in  this  present  life  as  confirma- 
tions of  the  supernatural  or  not, — and  that  here,  just  here, 
the  spurious  faith  breaks  down  and  lamentably  shows  that 
he  who  cannot  trust  God  for  positive  good  in  his  life — for 
blessings  here  which  he  can  see,  does  not,  in  fact  trust  Him 
there  for  blessings  which  he  cannot  see — His  faith  how- 
ever, he  may  regard  it  is  a  fancy — a  form — a  profession  and 
not  a  working  faith  at  all. 

I  put  emphasis  on  the  point  because  there  are  numbers 
of  people  in  the  Church  who  do  not  sympathize  with  Abra- 
ham in  this  matter — who  have  no  idea  of  faith  as  a  working 
principle  and  working  in  an  actual  practical  sort  of  a  way. 
The  faith  they  cherish  is  up  in  the  clouds — It  is  no  faith  like 
that  of  Muller  for  Orphan  houses — for  greater  facilities 
— for  grander  enterprises — for  enlargement  and  for  room 
for  God. 

"What  do  you  want  Canaan  for?"  cried  the  ten 
spies  in   Abraham's  mortal  bosom — (for  I  have  no  doubt 


452  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  spies  were  at  work  in  principle  ages  before  they  were 
present  in  person) — "what  do  you  want  Canaan  for? 

"I  want  it  as  a  monument  for  God !"  "I  want  a  land 
marked  off  among  the  nations  strong  enough  to  hold  its 
own  and  influence  the  nations" — "I  want  this  principle  of 
trust  on  an  imputed  righteousness,  which  is  the  everlast- 
ing principle  which  underlies  all  other  principles,  to  shine 
conspicuous,  upheld  by  many  witnesses  united,  consecrated 
and  compacted — strong  enough  to  make  it  tell." 

"But  where  will  you  get  your  witnessess?  When  you 
have  gotten  your  land,  you  will  have  no  one  to  put  in  it — 
It  will  be  empty  from  Beersheba  to  Dan!" 

"No,"  cries  Abraham — "10,000  times  'No.'  God  has 
promised  me  Isaac — a  seed  like  the  sand  by  the  sea — God 
Himself  expressly  says,  'Have  I  ever  been  a  wilderness  to 
Israel  ?''!  And  so,  Joshua  and  Caleb — "Faith  and  Pa- 

tience"— stand  up  in  Abraham  and  overcome  the  selfishness 
and  sluggishness — the  love  of  ease  and  thorough  worldliness 
and  cowardice  and  unbelief  of  the  ten  spies  in  him — and  go 
on,  and  hold  on  and  "inherit  the  promise." 

I  wish  we  might  see  what  a  common-sense  faith  was 
Abraham's  faith — that  it  fixed  on  success — an  increase  like 
the  sand  of  the  sea — an  actual,  earthly  and  positive  Canaan. 
That  it  believed  God  for  temporal,  tangible  things,  the  en- 
largement of  a  church  for  instance.  That  it  was  as  busi- 
ness-like in  its  calculations  as  business  itself,  only  that  it 
did  business  for  God — That  Abraham  took  hold  of  the 
spiritual  principle  and  worked  it  for  all  it  was  worth,  and 
that  he  believed  that  without  any  help  from  nature  or  man 
and  even  in  spite  of  all  opposition  of  nature,  of  man  and 
of  rank  unbelief  in  Sarah,  the  Church — that  principle  would 
triumph — that  he  would  have  increase — Isaacs  and  Jacobs 
and  Canaan — and  simply  because  of  the  promise  of  God. 

If  Abraham  had  lived  in  these  days  he  would  have 
believed  that  a  man  can  obey  God  without  the  help  of  money 
simply  because,  if  God  commands  a  thing,  He  will  provide 
the  means.  If  He  calls  Abraham  to  possess  a  Canaan  He 
will  give  him  a  Canaan  to  possess.  If  He  calls  him  to 
believe  for  an  Isaac  He  will  give  him  the  Isaac  for  whom 
he  believed. 

That  brings  us  to  consider, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  453 

II.  That  the  promise  was  given  in  the  face  of  natural 
impossibilities.  It  is  always  so.  The  supernatural  is  not 
only  above  the  natural  but  against  the  natural.  To  swim 
with  nature  we  have  only  to  yield  to  the  stream.  To  swim 
with  grace  we  have  got  to  bestir  ourselves — beat  up  against 
the  force  and  volume  of  a  river  and  adventure  trial,  dif- 
ficulty, danger,  opposition  at  our  every  stroke. 

All  things  are  against  the  revival  and  progress  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ.  It  was  so  with  Israel ;  Pharaoh  was 
against  them.  The  Red  Sea  was  against  them.  Amalek 
was  against  them.  Lack  of  food  was  against  them — lack 
of  water  against  them — the  desert  against  them — seven 
armed  and  warlike  nations  against  them — the  giants  against 
them.  Nothing  for  them — only  two  men,  Caleb  and  Joshua 
carried  them  through. 

It  was  so  with  Christ  Himself  when  He  came.  Herod 
was  against  Him.  The  Pharisees,  the  orthodox  were  against 
Him — the  Sadducees,  the  liberals  were  against  Him.  The 
Romans  were  against  Him.  Judas  was  against  Him.  Noth- 
ing was  for  Him.  Only  Christ  Himself  carried  Christ 
through. 

It  was  so  afterward  with  the  Apostles.  Herod  was  again 
against  them.  The  Sanhedrim  against  them.  Judaisin 
against  them.  Paganism  against  them.  Nothing  for  them. 
Only  Faith  carried  them  through. 

Everything-  was  against  Abraham.  His  great  age — his 
natural  inability  to  have  a  son — the  powerful  Kingdoms  of 
the  Canaanites.  The  very  absurdity  of  the  expectation  on 
his  part  acted  against  him. 

What  does  it  all  teach  us  ? 

It  teaches  us  that  when  God  comes  to  work  on  the  scene, 
He  sets  nature  aside — that  when  He  intends  to  give  any 
special  blessing  to  His  people,  He  first  writes  a  sentence 
of  death  on  that  blessing  as  He  did  on  Abraham's  body  and 
on  Sarah's  womb. 

The  Saints  of  God  are  called  the  "redeemed  of  the  Lord," 
says  Bridge,  an  old  Puritan — "not  only  because  they  are 
redeemed  from  hell  and  from  wrath  but  because  their 
whole  life  is  a  chain  of  redemptions,  each  link  of  which 
chain  is  stamped  'resurrection.'  " 

Take  Joseph  as  an  example  of  this.  He  is  to  be  greatly 
exalted  yet  each  step  in  the  way  of  preferment  is  a  new 


454  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

death.  Death  by  being  put  in  the  pit.  Death  by  the  accusa- 
tions of  Potiphar's  wife — death  by  being  cast  into  prison — 
death  by  being  left  there  in  chains — All  this  does  not  look 
like  the  eleven  sheaves  bowing  down ;  nor  the  Sun,  Moon 
and  Stars  in  obeisance, — but  see  the  counter-links !  Answera- 
ble to  the  pit  is  the  homage  of  his  brethren.  Answerable 
to  the  calumny,  the  Herald's  cry — "Bow  the  knee!" — 
Answerable  to  the  prison,  the  palace ;  and  to  the  fetters  on 
his  hands  and  feet,  the  ring  of  Pharaoh  and  the  chain  of 
gold. 

Take  another  example.  Samuel  tells  David  he  shall 
have  the  Kingdom — Forthwith,  David  is  driven  into  the 
desert — is  hunted  like  a  partridge  for  vears  and  at  last 
is  found  ready  to  perish  at  Ziklag.  You  see — God,  in 
giving  a  Kingdom  first  wrote  down  a  sentence  of  death. 

This  is  universal.  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die  it  abideth  alone; — but  if  it  die — if  it  be 
written  "hopeless" — if  the  clods  of  impossibility  fill 
up  its  grave,  then — most  extravagant  wonder — it  bring- 
eth  forth  fruit. 

Brethren,  let  us  take  this  fact  home  and  apply  it  on  our 
own  ground.  If  God  is  about  to  give  revival  to  your 
church  or  my  church  this  winter — He  will  first  put  discour- 
agements, failures,  disappointments  in  our  way.  He  will 
give  us  obstacles  to  surmount — He  will  put  our  virtue  to 
proof — He  will  place  us  in  front  of  the  Sealed  Sepulchre 
where  sleeping  cold  professors  and  where  dead  souls  alike 
lie  buried  and  He  will  say  to  us — "Roll  ye  away  the  Stone !" 

Grace  in  a  godly  man  or  holy  enterprise,  is  a  repeated 
resurrection.  Herein  is  our  virtue  put  to  the  proof.  He 
who,  waiting  for  a  blessing,  breaks  down  in  the  presence 
of  tombstones  and  death,  has  reason  to  fear  that  grace  is 
not  in  him;  for  grace,  like  Jesus  Christ,  is  never  on  the 
throne  until  it  issues  from  the  tomb. 

And  why  is  it  so?  Why  does  God,  so  soon  as  He  promises 
blessing,  write  on  it  the  sentence  of  death? 

i.  Because  God's  blessings  are  for  faith  and  faith  is  that 
sense  in  us  which  flies  above  the  other  senses, — whose 
very  instinct  is  to  venture  the  impossible  in  the  direction  of 
God.  The  impossible  therefore  is  necessary  to  the  very  ex- 
istence of  faith,  and  faith  as  soon  as  it  is  born  in  us  calls  for 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  455 

the  impossible.  Dealing  with  the  supernatural  as  it  does, 
faith  can  only  tvork  zvhen  sight  ceases,  when  sense  ceases, 
and  when  to  natural  judgment  there  is  no  hope. 

2.  Again,  because  God  means  to  have  the  honor  of  giving 
the  blessing  Himself,  and  in  His  own  way.  In  order  to  that, 
He  must  remove  everything  on  our  side  which  would  seem 
to  lead  up  to  the  blessing.  When  we  are  confounded,  then 
only,  we  give  the  credit  to  God. 

3.  In  order  that  we  may  be  cast  absolutely  on  God.  While 
a  swimmer  can  touch  bottom  he  will  not  commit  himself 
to  the  stream.  "Touch  bottom  Christians" — men  who  cau- 
tiously feel  their  way  to  the  fulfilment  of  Divine  prom- 
ises, have  not  yet  learned  the  secret  of  faith.  St.  Paul 
says  that  he,  in  his  work  as  a  minister,  received  in  himself, 
''the  sentence  of  death"  that  he  should  not  trust  in  himself, 
nor  in  any  help  of  surroundings;  but  in  God  who  raiseth 
the  dead. 

4.  God  writes  death  on  the  blessing  which  He  sets  before 
us  and  encourages  us  to  expect — in  order  from  time  to  time 
to  bring  out  the  actual  character  of  professed  Christians — 
There  is  no  test  like  presenting  us  suddenly  with  some 
blessing  for  which  against  present  appearances,  we  must 
believe.  That  test  brought  out  the  ten  spies.  No  one  would 
ever  have  known  that  there  were  such  men  in  Israel  had  it 
not  been  for  the  test.  Those  spies  marched  well  so  long 
as  things  shaped  readily  for  progress.  It  was  the  difficulty 
— the  impossibility — the  call  for  a  venture  on  God  fhat  un- 
masked them  and  showed  what  they  were. 

5.  God  writes  death  upon  the  blessing  He  intends  to  give, 
in  order  to  educate  faith.  No  discipline,  like  the  sentence 
of  death.  The  question  is  then  raised,  in  the  debate  of  the 
soul — "Shall  I  obtain  this  blessing  or  no?"  As  many  as 
are  for  the  blessing,  say  Aye!  "Aye,"  cries  the  promise.  As 
many  as  are  for  the  negative,  No!  "No"  cries  the  Death. 
"No,"  cries  frowning  Providence,  "No,"  cries  my  poverty. 
"No,"  cries  my  unworthiness.  "No,"  cry  opposers.  "No," 
cry  all  second  causes.   "No,"  cries  sleepy  stagnation  of  soul. 

Now,  to  stand  right  up  in  such  a  debate  and  in  the  face 
of  the  death — of  the  impossibility — of  the  utter  unlikelihood, 
and  side  with  the  promise  and  say  with  Abraham,  "God 
can  raise  up  the  dead  and  if  there  were  no  Isaac,  and  if 


456  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

I  myself  had  slain  Isaac,  still  out  of  the  stones  of  the  street 
can  God  raise  up  children" — that  sort  of  triumph  over  self 
and  nature  constitutes  the  being  and  the  essence  of  a 
Christian  man  and  more  than  all  else  proves  he  is  a  Chris- 
tian man.  For  what  makes  a  Christian  is  faith  and  the 
highest  acting  of  faith  is  in  the  face  of  sheerest  impos- 
sibility. 

God  therefore  writes  death  on  the  blessing  which  He 
intends  to  bestow  in  order  to  exalt  in  our  minds,  the  trans- 
cendent importance  of  faith.  Faith  is  Christianity — the 
whole  thing, — and  Faith  rolls  away  the  stone  from  the 
Sepulchre.  The  more  of  Christ  there  is  in  any  blessing — the 
more  of  his  impulse  in  any  undertaking,  the  more  and  the 
greater  the  Stone.  Big  Faith,  big  stone.  Therefore,  God 
rolls  in  the  impossibility — the  Stone. 

6.  God  writes  the  sentence  of  death  on  the  blessing  in 
order  that  we  may  appreciate  the  blessing.  God  says,  "I 
shall  give  you  conversions — I  shall  enlarge  you."  We  listen 
in  apathy.  We  neither  take  hold  of  the  promise  nor  pray. 
Weeks  and  months  roll  along,  no  conversions.  More  weeks 
and  months — no  conversions.  The  church  shrinks  instead 
of  enlarges.  At  last  we  begin  to  feel  this.  We  awake  we 
stir  ourselves — we  pray.  No  answer.  Still  we  pray  and 
still  no  answer.  Now,  we  are  fully  aroused.  We  are  willing 
to  sacrifice  something.  To  put  ourselves  out — to  give  up  some 
anticipated  amusement  in  order  that  there  may  be  held  an 
extra  meeting  for  prayer.  By  and  by  when  we  are  ready  to 
weep  for  discouragement — when  we  are  athirst  for  the 
blessing — when  we  are  willing  to  give  it  a  value;  it  comes. 
After  a  drought ;  when  men  are  parched — when  they  are 
faint  and  dying  for  thirst — when  they  feel  that  rain  is 
worth  having,  God  sends  the  shower. 

7.  God  writes  death  on  the  blessing  in  order  that  the 
world  may  see  that  the  existence  and  enlargement  of  the 
church  is  the  one  great  Miracle  of  God.  Miracle!  Miracle! 
Men  of  Miracle — that  is  what  we  are.  ''Behold  I  and  the 
children  whom  thou  hast  given  Me,"  says  Christ  "are  for 
Miracles."    (Isaiah  viii:i8.) 

Here  is  an  old  man  going  about  and  saying,  "I  shall 
have  a  son."  The  old  man  is  withered  up  and  they  laugh 
at  him.    He  keeps  on  saying  so,  and  they  laugh  more  and 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  457 

more.  He  has  told  the  impossible  story  for  25  years  and 
25  years  they  have  laughed.  Among  the  Hittites,  the 
Amorites,  the  Hivites  and  the  Jebusites  Abraham  has  come 
to  be  a  bye-word — Poor,  eccentric  old  man — what  delusion ! 
So  the  world  settles  it.  Then,  all  at  once  the  prediction 
comes  true.  "What !"  cry  the  Canaanites — "What !  Res- 
urrection !    Here  is  the  finger  of  God !" 

Xow  notice, 

III,  from  the  text.  Abraham  did  not  consider  the  im- 
possibilities. He  did  not  fix  his  attention  upon  "his  body 
now  dead." 

Had  he  done  so — Had  he  stood  poring  over  the  way  and 
the  how,  he  would  have  been  no  Abraham.  He  would  have 
broken  down. 

"If  you  would  believe,"  says  Luther,  "you  must  crucify 
the  tvord,  How?"  If  you  would  believe  you  must  venture 
blind-fold  on  God. 

Zacharias  could  not  do  this .  He  said  to  the  Angel — 
"Whereby  shall  I  know  that  I  shall  have  a  son,  for  I  am 
an  old  man  and  my  wife  well  stricken  in  years."  He  broke 
down  on  a  question  and  God  struck  him  dumb. 

Faith  is  a  principle  which  splits  with  sense  from  the 
start.  If  you  live  by  faith,  you  stop  living  by  sense,  for 
these  two  are  like  two  buckets  hanging  from  a  windlass — 
when  one  goes  up,  the  other  goes  down. 

A  mere  intellectual  and  speculative  pondering  upon  the 
hoii\  the  means,  and  the  inadequacy  and  the  deadness  of  the 
means  is  the  ruin  of  faith.  While  a  man  stands  question- 
ing, he  never  can  believe.  The  things  are  opposites  and 
mutually  destructive.  Had  Abraham,  in  the  face  of  the 
promise  turned  away  to  study  science — to  look  into  the 
laws  of  nature — to  ask  the  opinion  of  some  competent 
medical  man — why  there  was  not  a  scientist  in  all  Canaan, 
nor  a  philosoper  in  all  Egypt  but  would  have  told  him  in 
the  face  of  that  dead  body  of  his  the  thing  cannot  be. 

According  to  nature  and  the  course  of  nature,  God's 
promise  is  a  lie.  Grant  that  everything  is  true  in  nature. 
The  promise  is  not  nature — it  contradicts  nature.  Nature 
therefore  can  only  pronounce  the  promise  a  lie.    So  much 


458  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

does  Science,  my  Brother,  even  right  Science — Science  true 
on  its  own  lines,  assist  the  working  of  faith. 

Peter  is  sleeping  in  a  prison  cell  and  an  Angel  touches 
him  and  says,  "Come,  Peter !"  Peter  instead  of  looking  at 
the  Angel  looks  at  the  iron  door.  It  is  an  iron  door  and  the 
more  Peter  looks,  the  stronger  the  door  looks.  The  facts 
are  all  true  and  Peter,  a  hard-headed  common  sense  man 
looks  at  the  facts.  The  more  he  considers,  the  more  there 
is  to  consider.  It  is  an  iron  door.  It  is  locked.  What 
rational  hope  of  escape? 

What  does  Peter  do?  He  follows  the  Angel  and  the  door 
is  still  locked.  It  remains  locked  up  to  the  moment  they 
stand  on  the  threshold — then  an  invisible  Something 
shoves  back  the  bolt  and  Peter  is  free. 

Suppose  that  you  are  drowning  in  a  river  and  a  man, 
from  the  bank,  throws  you  a  rope.  Now  you  consider  the 
river — you  fix  your  eyes  upon  its  cold,  dark  waves.  You 
consider  that  you  are  drowning — that  you  will  probably  go 
down  the  third  time.  That  there  is  little  or  no  chance.  All 
that  is  true,  strictly  true,  but  true  as  it  is  it  is  your  ruin. 

Your  salvation  depends  upon  your  getting  your  mind  off 
these  things  and  exclusively  and  undistractedly  upon  the 
rope.    You  must  strike  out  for  the  rope. 

Faith  is  nothing  else  but  the  soul's  venture — in  the  face 
of  all  discouragements — all  seeming  contradiction  of  the 
sense  and  nature,  on  the  promises  of  God.  God  stands 
above  all  nature  and  the  senses,  and  out  of  heaven  He 
cries  down,  "Can  you  trust  me  in  spite  of  all  these — in  spite 
of  the  body  now  dead?"  And  the  answer  to  that  question 
saves  or  damns  the  man,  and  stamps  his  life  success  or 
mediocrity  and  failure. 

That  leads  us  up  to  the 

IV  and  last  point  of  the  text.  Faith  in  the  promise — that 
only — carried  Abraham  through. 

Faith  is  salvation.  "Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee" — Christ 
in  addressing  the  woman  on  this  vital  question  does  not 
say  with  the  Romanist,  "Thy  love  hath  saved  thee."  Nor 
with  the  free-wilier,  "Thy  resolution  hath  saved  thee," 
nor  with  the  denier  of  the  Deity  of  Christ,  "Thy  morality 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  459 

and  thy  culture  hath  saved  thee ;"  but  He  says,  "thy  faith, 
the  supernatural  power  in  thee,  the  gift  of  God  in  thee, 
hath  saved  thee." 

Abraham  zvas  saved  by  faith.  If  you  and  I  are  wise  we 
shall  wish  to  be  saved  the  same  way.  For  4,000  years  this 
faith  of  Abraham  has  stood  conspicuous  as  the  supremest, 
sublimest  attainable  act  of  the  soul. 

Faith  is  the  mother  and  womb  of  the  graces.  Other  graces 
adorn  a  Christian,  but  faith  makes  a  Christian.  Ever,  ever 
let  us  cling  to  this  as  the  Gospel,  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  that  alone,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved. 

Faith  is  the  conquering  grace.    It  builds  the  church. 

Unbelief  builds  nothing.  It  stands  across  the  metals  of 
the  church's  advance  and  cries  with  the  ten  spies,  "Back! 
Back!"  It  calls  for  a  convention  of  doctors  to  dissect  the 
dead  body  and  report  if  they  are  not  right  when  they  say, 
"it  is  dead."  It  enumerates  very  exactly  and  with  exceed- 
ing judiciousness  the  number  of  the  Sons  of  Anak. 

Then  Faith — a  white  hot  plozv-share,  drives  through  the 
whole  thing — realizes  the  promise  and  leaves  unbelief  to 
shame  and  everlasting  contempt. 


460  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 


NICEA  AND  ARIUS. 

"Whosoever  transgresseth,  and  abideth  not  in  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  hath  not  God.  He  that  abideth  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ, 
he  hath  both  the  Father  and  the  Son.  If  there  come  any  unto  you, 
and  bring  not  this  doctrine,  receive  him  not  into  your  house,  neither 
bid  him  God-speed ;  For  he  that  abideth  him  God-speed  is  partaker 
of  his  evil  deeds."  II  John  9,  10,  11. 

It  is  a  common  but  superficial  opinion  that  great  heretics 
are  better  than  their  systems,  and  are  not  responsible  for  the 
extremes  to  which  their  systems  and  successors  run  when 
passing  the  limits  which  they  themselves  have  been  careful 
to  guard  and  observe. 

No  opinion  could  be  more  false ;  nor  more  pernicious.  As 
well  apologize  for  Satan's  apostacy  on  the  ground  that  he 
was  better  than  those  he  seduced  and  did  not  foresee  the 
drift  of  his  movement;  as  apologize  for  Arminius  and  Arius 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  purer  and  more  orthodox  than 
their  followers  and  that  their  followers  carried  their  princi- 
ples to  an  extravagance  for  which  they,  the  authors,  them- 
selves were  not  prepared. 

The  opinion  as  applied  to  the  case  of  Arminius  is  especial- 
ly untrue,  for  Arminius  revolved  in  his  own  mind  and  taught 
to  his  disciples  all  that  length  of  error  which  they  afterward 
professed.  The  head  of  the  serpent  was  not  deceived  in  the 
tail.  His  last  Will  and  Testament  shows  that  Arminius 
shrunk  from  no  consequences  of  his  heresy,  and  the  effort 
of  Prof.  Moses  Stuart,  his  warm  and  too  ardent  apologist, 
to  prove  Arminius  orthodox  falls  flat  in  the  face  of 
Arminius's  own  express  declaration  that  he  meant  to  break 
down  the  orthodox  creeds  and  reduce  all  Christians  to  the 
level  of  one  common  rationalistic  religion. 

As  for  Arius,  who  taught  a  beginning  of  the  Son  of  God, 
that  there  was  a  time  when  He  was  not  existent,  and  that  He 
owed  His  existence  to  an  act  of  the  will  of  the  Father ; 
when  charged  with  thus  making  the  Son  of  God  mutable, 
since  there  was  then  a  time  when  He  zvas  not;  and  again  a 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  461 

time  when  He  zvas — he  did  not  hesitate  to  acknowledge  this, 
and  went  on  further  to  affirm  that  "it  would  be  possible  for 
the  Son  of  God  to  fall,  even  as  the  devil  has  fallen,  since  He 
is  mutable  and  in  His  nature  liable  to  change."  All  that 
can  come  out  in  the  lowest  and  most  degraded  humanitar- 
ianism,  which  makes  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  a  mere  man  and 
so  an  impostor,  is  justly  chargeable  upon  Arius,  let  his  no- 
tion of  the  origin  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  still  call  it  "origin," 
be  as  exalted  as  it  may. 

This  character  of  heresy  as  all-inclusive,  i.  e.,  that  the 
beginning  of  a  controversy  with  God,  upon  any  one  point, 
is  as  when  one  letteth  out  water,  and  that  the  crevice  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  crevasse,  puts  heresy  in  a  most  solemn 
light  before  us  and  points  as  its  poisonous  fountain  falseness 
in  the  heart. 

The  trouble  with  men  like  Arminius  and  Arius  is  not  that 
they  are  at  first,  perhaps,  intentionally,  consciously  erro- 
neous, but  that  they  are  "natural"  men.  They  lack  the 
spiritual  life,  and  are  doing  what  they  can  as  philosophers  to 
understand  and  define  that  which  they  are  ignorant  of ;  that 
of  which  they  have  had  no  experience. 

That  will  explain  the  spirit  and  the  pertinacity  of  ''Higher 
Criticism."  It  is  the  activity  of  the  natural  man,  unconscious 
of  his  blindness,  dealing  with  things  which  are  too  high  for 
him — as  if  a  fish  should  undertake  to  swim  in  air  or  an 
elephant  to  fly. 

Arius,  devoid  of  spiritual,  laid  down  intellectual  principles 
of  Biblical  interpretation  and  formed  his  vague  and  vacilla- 
ting views — all  of  which,  however,  flowed  in  crooked 
streams,  from  one  initial  error — on  his  own  hermeneutics, 
exegesis  and  grammar.  He  revised  the  text  to  suit  a  reason 
which  could  not  receive  the  things  of  the  Spirit,  for  "the 
natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
for  they  are  foolishness  unto  him;  neither  can  he  know 
them  because  they  are  spiritually  discerned." 

The  difficulty  indicated  here,  suggests  the  reason  whv  it  is 
the  heretic  who  first  assaults  the  Church — never  the  Church 
the  heretic.  The  Church  is,  always  only  on  the  defensive 
against  such  men.  The  orthodox  teaching  proceeds  without 
any  question,  without  any  trouble,  until,  all  at  once,  some  one 
springs  up  and  denies  the  fundamental  truth  of  God,  attacks 


462  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Inspiration ;  or  the  Deity  of  Christ ;  or  the  Integrity  of  the 
Atonement,  and  keeps  up  the  attack,  flaunts  the  black  flag  of 
treason  in  some  obscure  corner,  then  more  openly,  then  in  re- 
treat, then  more  openly  again,  then  insultingly  and  defiantly 
upon  the  very  heights  of  Zion,  and  the  faith  of  God's  people 
begins  to  waver  and  everywhere  solid  conviction  is  shaken, 
and  Christ  already  wounded,  bids  fair  to  be  slain  in  the 
house  of  His  friends  and  religion,  so  threatened,  to  be 
irretrievably  lost,  and  then  at  last,  all  too  tardily,  the  Church 
arises  in  her  righteousness  and  might  and  downs  the  traitor, 
and  every  malcontent  cries  out,  "Poor  Traitor !  What  in- 
tolerance !" 

But  why  make  such  a  point  of  abstract  truth,  if  men's  lives 
are  only  according  to  godliness? 

Because  that  is  the  question  at  issue.  Truth  affects  every- 
thing. The  abstract  question,  "Whether  there  be  any  God 
or  no?"  Settled  one  way,  brought  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  enthroned  the  goddess  of  Reason  in  the  temples 
of  Christ. 

The  abstract  question  "Whether  it  is  right  to  have  more 
than  one  wife  or  no?"  settled  one  way,  makes  Mormonism 
and  the  social  condition  of  Utah. 

The  abstract  question  "Whether  twice  two  make  three  or 
no?"  settled  one  way,  would  ruin  finance  to-morrow  and. 
from  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  throw  every  account  into 
confusion. 

Because  truth  is  in  order  to  holiness.  Never  can  you  aber- 
rate one  infinitessimal  hair  from  the  truth  and  knowingly  do 
it,  without  receiving  a  shock  through  your  whole  moral  na- 
ture. Principles  make  men  and  communities  and  churches 
and  nations.  These  are  never  better  than  their  principles — 
rarely  ever  so  good.  Upon  the  principle,  therefore,  hangs 
everything,  and  the  fight  for  Principle  in  this  world  is  the 
fight  upon  those  highest  elevations  where  the  citadels  of 
moral  goodness  and  moral  soundness  are  maintained  or  fall. 

In  one  word,  since  the  cross  has  been  set  up,  its  perpen- 
dicular and  landmark— PRINCIPLE  IS  EVERYTHING 
— the  essence  of  piety,  as  it  is  the  essence  of  morality  and 
manhood.  "Unprincipled,"  we  say,  when  we  wish  to  use  the 
language  of  most  condign  condemnation.    And  we  are  right. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  463 

But  why  should  Principle  ever  come  into  question  ?  Why 
should  it  not  win  and  compel,  from  the  first,  a  cordial  and 
loyal  consent? 

Let  me  reply,  in  the  slightly  altered  language  of  a  devout 
thinker:  "Because  the  human  mind,  in  matters  of  faith  as 
well  as  practice,  hates  restraint.  Because  while  Revelation 
has  disclosures  which  man's  intellect  may  search  out  in  sub- 
missive and  adoring  love,  still  it  is  a  restraint.  It  is  a  study 
which  can  be  pursued  only  in  the  line  of  that  promise, 
"Thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee,  saying,  'This  is 
the  way,  walk  ye  in  it,  when  ye  turn  to  the  right  hand, 
and  when  ye  turn  to  the  left.'  "  So  then  to  those,  who 
do  not  openly  break  with  it,  yet  still  cling  to  their  own 
individual  conceptions  of  God,  there  are  the  old  Arian, 
Semi-Arian  and  Arminian  temptations  to  take  so  much  of 
it  as  will  satisfy  their  consciences  in  parting  with  the  rest. 
Because  the  world  is  in  one  wide  rebellion ;  speaking,  in  the 
Name  of  God,  against  the  truths  of  God ;  setting  His  Infinite 
Love  against  His  awful  Holiness  and  renewing  the  ser- 
pent's question,  'Hath  God  indeed  said?'  With  the  serpent 
too,  it  misrepresents'  and  perverts  and  omits  what  God 
does  say." 

The  Christian  Church,  called  up  out  of  the  catacombs  300 
years  after  the  death  of  her  Founder,  was  convoked  at 
Nicaea,  A.  D.  325. 

Never  once,  since  the  famous  Synod  of  Jerusalem  re- 
corded in  the  15th  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  had  her 
pastors  and  presbyters  seen  themselves  seated  in  catholic 
conclave. 

The  occasion  of  the  council  was.  Arius — pastor  of  the 
church  called  Baucalis  in  Alexandria — a  church  founded  as 
a  private  mission  by  a  noble  Egyptian  lady  named  Thekla. 

Arius  had  been  preaching  what  had  for  some  time  been 
regarded  as  peculiar  doctrine.  He  had  been  feeling  his  way 
along,  now  saying  what  all  would  acknowledge,  and  then 
interposing  a  suggestion  or  statement  which  shocked. 

Finally  a  sermon  preached  in  his  pulpit  by  the  chief  pas- 
tor of  the  city,  Alexander,  in  which  the  true  doctrine  was 
announced  with  no  uncertain  sound,  incited  Arius  to  a  reply 
and  he  came  out  with  statements  such  as  the  following: 


464  THE   DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE. 

"God  has  not  always  been  Father.  There  was  a  moment 
when  He  was  alone  and  was  not  yet  Father ;  later  He  be- 
came so.  The  Son  is  not  from  eternity;  He  came  from 
nothing." 


"God  is  ineffable,  and  nothing  is  equal  to,  or  like  Him, 
or  of  the  same  glory.  The  eternal  God  made  the  Son,  a 
creature  before  all  creatures  and  adopted  Him  for  Son. 
The  Son  has  nothing  in  His  own  nature  akin  to  God.  and 
is  not  like  Him  in  essence.  The  Invisible  God  is  also  in- 
visible to  the  Son."* 

The  views  of  Arius  arose  out  of  speculation,  the  perilous 
play  of  the  natural  man. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  men  in  the  Church  and  they  may 
be  distinguished  at  once  by  this  characteristic.  That  which 
is  false  speculates,  is  only  intellectual,  tosses  up  and  down 
the  truth  as  an  elastic  ball — discusses  theology  for  the  fun 
of  it! 

The  other  class  is  tearful,  anxious,  most  serious.  Theirs 
is  a  heart-felt  religion.  They  earnestly  pursue  the  truth, 
not  for  the  pleasure  of  the  pursuit,  for  its  pathway  is  too 
often  sown  with  sorrows,  but  because  their  nature  is  akin 
to  truth,  because  it  is  clear  to  them,  dearer  than  life.  The 
world  itself  on  one  side,  and  the  smallest  truth  of  God  on 
the  other,  these  men  will  steadily  defend  that  smallest 
truth  and  take  every  consequence. 

Arius  was  the  first  kind  of  a  man.  A  theological  spec- 
ulator, on  that  rock  he  split.  He  could  not  reconcile  to  his 
reason  the  doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  the  Godhead  with  that 
of  the  true  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son.  He  therefore 
contended  that  the  Son  was  totally  and  essentially  distinct 
from  the  Father:  that  since  the  Son  was  begotten  of  the 
Father,  He  could  not  be  co-eternal  with  the  Father,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  co-equal  God.  That,  on  the  con- 
trary, He  was  the  first  and  the  noblest  of  those  beings 
whom  the  Father  created  out  of  nothing — the  Instrument, 
in  fact,  by  whose  subordinate  energy  the  Almighty  Father 

*The  "Thalia,"  a  ribald  poem  of  Arius.     I  would  quote  more  but 
dare  not  print  these  blasphemies. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  465 

formed  all  other  beings,  but  inferior  to  the  Father,  as  a 
creature,  both  in  dignity  and  nature.* 

A  Synod  was  convened  in  the  City  of  Alexandria  for  the 
examination  of  these  opinions  of  Arius  now  open  and  full 
blown.  Nearly  one  hundred  Egyptian  and  Libyan  pastors 
or  bishops  attended  the  Synod  and  Arius  was  condemned 
and  himself  with  his  adherents  expelled  from  the  com- 
munion of  the  Church.  The  expulsion  however  by  no  means 
silenced  him.  His  partisans  were  active  in  spreading  his 
doctrines.  Arian  songs,  notably  the  "Thalia,"  already 
quoted,  were  sung  to  vulgar  tunes  about  the  street.  Arius 
at  last  was  banished  from  the  city,  but  he  still  wrote  letters 
which  were  circulated  throughout  all  the  East  and  which  by 
their  plausible  putting  and  color  gained  him  many  adher- 
ents, notably  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  a  personage  of 
mighty  influence  with  Constantine  the  Great,  who  so 
warmly  espoused  the  cause  of  the  heresiarch  that  their 
party  deserves  rather  the  title  of  Eusebians  than  that  of 
Arians. 

Finally  Constantine  the  Great  was  moved.  Astute  and 
sagacious  as  was  this  Emperor,  the  most  masterly  adminis- 
trator of  affairs  that  ever  wore  Caesarian  purple,  he  took  in 
at  a  glance  the  issue  of  this  heresy  of  Arius  in  the  disruption 
of  the  Church  not  only,  but  of  the  empire  itself  but  newly 
reconsolidated ;  and  interposed  his  hand. 

The  chief  disputants  on  both  sides  well  understood  that 
the  points  involved  were  far  too  serious  to  be  smoothed 
away  by  any  compromise,  and  the  upshot  of  the  Emperor's 
intervention  was  that  a  great,  general  and  universal  Coun- 
cil was  convened  by  his  authority  to  consider  the  question. 

The  place  chosen  for  the  Council  was  Nicsea.  Rome 
would  not  do,  it  was  too  far  to  the  west.  Nicomedia 
would  not  do,  for  that  had  been  the  former  capital  of  the 
eastern  half  of  the  empire  and  would  be  likely,  from  its 
very  name,  to  recall  the  ancient  division,  and  become 
aeain  the  party  cry  of  a  divisive  Orient.  Constantinople 
did  not  as  yet  exist,  but  nearest,  perhaps,  to  that  point  of 
geographical  centre  lay  the  city  Nicaea. 

If  you  were  to  sail  up  the  sea  of  Marmora  until  you  had 
approached  within  forty  miles  of  the  present  Constantinople, 

*Cutts — "Constantine   the   Great."     Bush — "St.   Athanasius." 


466  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

you  would  see  to  your  right  hand,  i.  e.,  to  the  south,  from 
the  Island  of  Princopou,  a  gulf  which  by  a  small  inlet  con- 
nects with  a  lake — in  Norway  one  would  almost  call  it  a 
fjord — the  Lake  of  Ascanius.  At  the  head  of  this  lake, 
fourteen  miles  away  from  the  inlet,  and  just  at  the  foot  of 
the  Bythynian  Olympus,  with  its  woody,  overhanging  steeps, 
lies  Nieaea.  It  is  an  oblong  square  with  double  walls,  built 
on  the  same  model  as  that  of  Antioch,  Damascus,  Phila- 
delphia and  all  oriental  cities,  i.  e.,  upon  the  model  of  a 
square  intersected  by  four  straight  streets,  adorned  by  long 
lines  of  columns,  which  turned  their  whole  length  into  porti- 
coes, making  an  extended  Champs  Elysees,  where  screened 
from  the  fierce  glare  and  heat  of  an  Eastern  sun,  the  mixed 
population  thronged  in  all  that  picturesque  variety  of  type 
and  costume,  which  makes  the  cities  of  the  Orient  so  full  of 
interest. 

"We  can  imagine,"  says  a  graphic  writer,  "the  bishops 
and  the  presbyters  arriving,  mostly  in  groups,  at  intervals 
of  a  day  or  two,  and  the  people  sauntering  beneath  the  long 
colonnades  of  the  principal  streets,  gazing  at  the  new  ar- 
rivals as  they  pass  toward  the  quarters  allotted  to  them  by 
the  imperial  servants.  It  is  a  lovely  time,  in  June,  and 
many  who  have  come  easily  and  without  fatigue  by  way 
of  the  water,  walk  along  very  much  at  their  ease  under 
the  wide  spreading  chestnuts  or  cool  colonnades,  with  ship- 
men  and  servants  carrying  their  luggage  behind  them  ;  others 
arriving  in  a  caravan,  riders  and  camels  and  pack-horses 
mingled  together,  covered  with  the  sweat  and  dust  of  a 
long  journey,  drag  themselves  along  or  slip  about  on  the 
hot  stones  of  the  streets,  with  clattering  of  horses'  hoofs 
and  cries  of  their  drivers." 

We  can  imagine  the  interest  with  which  they  gazed  on 
one  another,  those  foremost  champions  of  the  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ,  in  her  first  Gentilic  Council — men  who  had 
heard  much  of  one  another,  men  known  to  one  another, 
though  as  yet  unknown,  by  the  fame  of  their  learning, 
their  sanctity  or  their  sufferings.  Out  of  318  there  were 
but  a  dozen  who  had  not  lost  an  eye  or  a  hand,  or  who  did 
not  halt  upon  a  leg  shrunk  in  its  sinew  by  the  burning  iron 
of  torture. 

Men  emerging  from  the  grave  of  the  great  Diocletian 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  467 

persecution,  men  of  resurrection  fully  conscious  that  their 
meeting  was  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  Christianity — the 
empire  and  the  world. 

Let  us  attempt,  if  we  can,  to  put  the  Council  before  us. 

It  met  in  one  of  the  great  Basilicas  of  the  city.  Benches 
were  arranged  along  the  walls  for  the  pastors  or  bishops, 
who  had  their  elders  behind  them  and  deacons  on  a  lower 
seat  in  front. 

A  low  chair  of  gold  had  been  set  for  the  emperor  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  hall,  and  on  each  side  of  this,  two  of  the 
most  venerable  of  the  assembly  as  Moderators — Hosius,  of 
Cordova,  in  Spain,  upon  the  left,  and  Eusebius,  of  Csesarea, 
on  the  right. 

When  all  are  seated  the  doors  are  thrown  open  and  the 
imperial  procession  enters.  First  come  the  Officers  of 
Court,  then  the  body-guard  and  the  attendant  pages,  then 
the  herald,  who  announces  the  Imperial  presence,  and  the 
whole  assembly  stands  up. 

Constantine,  stately  and  imposing,  his  person  clad  in 
purple  worked  with  gold  and  glittering  with  jewels,  his 
long  golden  hair  covered  by  a  light  helmet  encircled  by  a 
diadem,  advances  slowly  up  the  centre  of  the  auditorium, 
his  eyes  cast  down,  his  customary  majesty  tempered  by  a 
Christian  humility.  "It  was  splendid,"  says  Eusebius,  "like 
the  appearance  of  an  angel !" 

Look  for  a  moment  at  the  grouping: 

Spain  was  represented  by  the  holy  Hosius  and  his  fellow 
presbyters. 

Egypt  by  Alexander  and  his  Archdeacon,  the  great 
Athanasius. 

Svria  by  the  graceful  Eustathius. 

Mesopotamia  by  James  of  Nisibis,  the  troglodite,  the 
cave-dweller,  who  to  the  day  of  his  death,  wore  his  rough 
goatshair  cloak. 

Armenia  was  represented  by  Aristaces,  the  son  of 
Gregory,  the  Illuminator. 

Persia  by  the  Catholicos,  or  Missionary  Superintendent, 
with  eleven  fellow  presbyters. 

Theophilus  led  in  the  Gothic  church  from  beyond  the 
Danube.     Marcellus,  the  Church  of  Ancyra. 


468  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Spiridion,  now  the  patron  Saint  of  the  Ionian  Islands, 
the  church  of  Cyprus. 

Spiridion !  let  me  stop  upon  him  for  he  is  a  typical  pastor 
and  presbyter. 

When  we  stopped  at  Corfu  last  summer,  we  were  at- 
tended by  a  companion,  a  Greek  fellow-traveler,  who 
showed  us  no  little  attention.  This  gentleman  procured 
for  us  a  carriage  and  a  guide  and  we  made  the  tour  of  the 
town  together,  looking  down,  from  the  grove-shaded 
Acropolis,  upon  the  beautiful  bay  of  Kardakio  and  the 
island  of  Pondikonisi,  said  to  be  the  old  ship  of  Ulysees 
turned  into  stone.*  On  our  return,  crossing  the  square  and 
deflecting  through  one  of  the  narrow  and  crooked  streets  of 
the  city,  we  found  ourselves  before  the  church  of  St. 
Spiridion,  the  holiest  shrine  in  the  Ionic  Archipelago. 

Here  rests  the  coffin  of  the  saint  whose  body  was 
brought  from  Cyprus  to  Constantinople  and  from  Constan- 
tinople to  Corfu.  While  gazing  at  the  votive  offerings 
and  pictures  of  miracles  which  Greek  superstition  attributes 
to  Spiridion  we  missed  our  friend,  and,  turning,  saw  him 
prostrate  at  the  shrine,  kissing  the  altar-cloth. 

Spiridion  was  nothing  but  an  old  rough  Puritan.  Just 
such  a  man  as  they  reared  up  one  hundred  years  ago,  on 
the  New  England  hills.  He  was  without  education,  a  shep- 
herd tending  a  literal  flock,  but,  for  his  very  godliness,  his 
sound  and  holy  heart,  called  to  be  a  pastor.  To  the  end  he 
maintained  his  Christian  humility,  simplicity  and  virtue, 
although  he  could,  like  others  of  his  class,  show  at  times  a 
most  vehement  earnestness,  as  witness  the  speech  made  by 
one  of  them,  perhaps  Spiridion  himself,  in  substance  like 
this: 

There  had  been  much  of  rhetoric  and  play  of  logic,  elo- 
quence and  wit  in  the  Council,  when  the  old  man  arose  and 
said:  "See  here!  This  thing,  my  brethren,  is  not  a  matter 
of  learning  and  wit,  of  intellect  and  logic.  Only  men  who 
have  the  Holy  Ghost  in  them  can  discern  the  truth  and 
state  it.  For  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  is  revealed  alone  to  the 
spirit.  Listen  to  me,  ye  philosophers,  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ!  Do  not  waste  so  much  time  in  seeking  to  prove 
what  only  faith  can  receive,  but  answer  me  plainly.  Do  ye 
believe  the  words  of  the  Scripture ?    DO  YE  BELIEVE? 

*Odyssey  xiii  :i62, 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  469 

The  result  of  the  question  so  put  is  said  to  have  been  the 
conversion  of  one  of  the  pagan  philosophers  present,  who 
sought  out  the  speaker  and  said  to  him,  "I  wish  to  be  bap- 
tized." The  story  is  valuable  for  it  lets  us  into  the  spirit 
and  the  sentiment  which  finally  ruled  the  Council  of  Nicaea, 
and  which  was  so  sublimely  conspicuous  in  Athanasius, 
viz. :  the  profound  conviction  that  the  ultimate  and  true 
decision  must  be  a  victory  of  faith  alone  over  the  human 
"dialectic,"  and  that  that  faith  must  be  "of  grace,"  the  pres- 
ent working  of  the  all-illuminating  Spirit.  Hence  the  tra- 
dition that,  in  counting  the  number  of  the  assembled 
fathers,  they  always  counted  one  more  than  the  actual 
number ;  this  One  being  God  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Passing  from  the  composition  of  the  Council,  let  us  now 
picture  to  ourselves,  in  thought,  its  arena,  placing  in  the 
fore  the  principal  antagonists,  Arius — Athanasius,  and  first 

ARIUS. 

He  is  sixty  years  of  age;  tall,  thin,  and  apparently  un- 
able to  support  his  lank,  loose-jointed  stature.  He  has  an 
odd  way  of  contorting  and  twisting  himself,  like  the  wig- 
glings  of  a  snake.  He  would  be  handsome,  but  for  the 
emaciation  and  the  deadly  pallor  of  his  face,  and  the  down- 
cast look  imparted  by  his  weak  eyesight.  At  times  his 
veins  swell  and  his  limbs  tremble  and  there  is  a  wild  look 
about  him  that  is  startling;  to  this  effect  contributes  the 
tangled  mass  of  hair  upon  his  head. 

He  wears  a  close-fitting  tunic  with  short  sleeves,  and 
when  he  speaks  his  head  erects  itself  upon  the  long  and 
shapely  neck  like  a  swan's  neck,  droops  forward  and  a 
strange  scintillant  light  gleams  in  his  dark,  mysterious  eyes. 
His  right  hand,  gently  lifted,  waves  to  and  fro  with  a  mo- 
tion swaying  willowy  and  vibrant,  as  if  beating  time.  He 
rears  himself  to  the  full  height  of  his  gigantic  stature,  and 
his  enormous  head  darts  forward  like  a  glittering  cobra's 
while  his  full  voice  sounds  sharp,  distinct  and  sibilant  in 
every  part  of  the  hall.* 

*The  above  portrait  is  a  mosaic  made  up  equally  from  orthodox 
and  unitarian  sources.  The  original  description  of  Arius  comes 
from  Epiphanius. 


470  THE   DOCTRINES   0E   GRACE. 

Arius  abounds  in  subtlety.  He  puts  his  opinions  in  the 
most  plausible  manner,  keeping  back  those  aspects  which 
would  be  likely  to  surprise,  and  laying-  great  emphasis  on 
those  words  and  expressions  which  in  common  with  the  or- 
thodox he  could  bring  himself  to  employ.  When  what  he 
said  was  evidently  unacceptable,  skilled  in  subterfuge,  he 
would  adroitly  draw  back  and  hide  himself  under  am- 
biguous verbiage,  employing  language,  as  Tallyrand  has 
put  it,  "Not  to  convey,  but  to  disguise  his  thought." 

Opposite  to  Arius  stands 

ATHANASIUS. 

The  Council  is  against  him,  as  is  generally  the  case  in 
any  similar  struggle — the  novelties  of  Arius,  half  under- 
stood, and  therefore  accepted  upon  their  own  claim  to  su- 
perior depth,  scholarship  and  expertness — fresh,  bold, 
bladder-blown  in  their  stupendous  conceit  as  they  were, 
carried,  as  if  with  the  wind,  the  current  of  popular  favor. 

The  Council  is  against  Athanasius,  but  Athanasius  does 
not  fear.  He  is  not  yet  thirty  years  old,  but  God  has  made 
him  for  this  crisis,  and  he  knows  it,  and  he  will  be  true  to 
God.f 

"Put  it  how  you  will,"  he  says,  "you  make  the  Son  of 
God  a  creature.  Being  which  owes  itself  to  act  of  will  is  a 
created  thing. 

"Three  can  be  yet  three  in  the  unity  of  one  substance. 

"This  brick  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  is  a  trinity.  Re- 
solve it  into  its  elements.  The  fire  it  contains  flies  to 
heaven,  the  water  falls  to  the  ground,  the  dust  remains  in 
my  palm. 

"Lay  a  bar  of  iron  hot  from  the  furnace  on  the  anvil. 
It  is  three — iron,  heat  and  redness — yet  the  three  are  one. 


fGregory  of  Nazianzum  describes  Athanasius  as  he  appeared  in 
later  life.  "His  person  was  comely,  his  countenance  angelical,  his 
gesture  affable  and  courteous,  yet  grave.  His  speech  was  terse, 
acute,  appropriate,  emphatic.  His  delivery  earnest  but  pleasing. 
Athanasius  was  of  under  size  but  symetrical  and  very  handsome. 
At  the  age  of  76  his  hoary  head  was  like  a  crown  of  glory.  The 
heavenliness  of  the  doctrine  for  which  he  contended  imparted  to 
his  whole  appearance  and  character  a  singular  elevation  and  heaven- 
liness. Since  the  apostles,  he'  stands  foremost  in  the  Christian 
Church. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  $j\ 

The  sun  is  body,  light  and  heat.  No  sun  without  the 
three,  yet  is  the  sun  a  unit. 

"Fountain,  stream  and  lake — three  in  name  and  three  in 
fact,  yet  one  water — one  substance. 

"Man  physical  is  head,  heart,  members.  Man  mental  is 
mind,  affections,  will.  Matt  composite  is  body,  soul  and 
Spirit,  yet  is  man  a  plural-unit.     Why  not  God? 

"In  the  Eternal  Generation  of  the  Son  lies  the  heart  of 
the  Divine  Mystery.     Let  creatures  fear  and  adore. 

"Eternal  Generation  is  an  Offspring  out  of  the  eternal 
essence.    Creation  is  a  new  essence. 

"Creation  owes  itself  to  the  will  of  God.  Eternal  Son- 
ship  to  the  necessity  of  His  nature. 

"The  father  is  not  a  Monad  existing  anterior  in  the  order 
of  nature,  to  the  Son,  but  is  simply  a  member  of  co-equal, 
co-eternal  Trinity. 

"No  Son,  no  Father!  no  Father,  no  God! 

"Sonship  is  an  internal  and  eternal  relationship  of  won- 
drous Divine  existence  to  the  Father,  incomprehensible  in- 
deed to  us,  for  who  can  know  the  Godhead  but  the  God- 
head ?  but  received  by  faith." 

The  proper  Deity  of  the  Son  of  God  is  the  highest  truth 
conceivable  or  possible.  It  is  the  life  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. 

On  Sonship  depends  the  eternity  of  our  election.  If  He 
is  not  eternal,  our  election  is  not  eternal,  for  we  are  elected 
— "chosen  in  Him." 

On  Sonship  depends  the  integrity  of  redemption.  If  He 
be  not  God,  if  it  be  not  the  "Blood  of  God"  with  which  He 
bought  His  Church,  of  what  value  is  His  atonement? 

On  Sonship  depends  the  "sending"  and  the  "giving"  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  How,  if  He  be  not  God,  can  He  give 
God  or  send  God. 

On  Sonship  depends  our  infallible  preservation.  If 
Christ  be  a  mere  creature  then  He  may  fall,  and  we  fall  in 
Him  and  with  Him.  In  that  case,  how  can  He  save  to 
the  uttermost,  and  love  to  the  end? 

On  Everlasting  Sonship  depends  our  spiritual  sonship. 
We  have  the  communion  of  "sons"  and  we  know  it — we 
say  "Abba,"  Father,  and  we  know  it,  although  we  do  not 
comprehend  it,  only  in  and  through  the  Everlasting  Son. 


472  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

The  point  of  victory  turned  at  Nicaea  on  a  single  word. 
That  word  is  homoousion,  "the  same  in  substance,"  equal 
in  power  and  glory. 

That  word  Arius  and  his  party  could  not  adopt.  They 
were  willing  to  say  homoiousion  of  a  similar  substance ;  for 
then  He  might  be  divine  as  a  creature,  but  not  homoousion 
of  the  same  substance,  for  then  He  is  God.  And  so  the 
fiercest  theological  battle  ever  fought  raged  around  two  dis- 
syllables, homo  and  homoi  .  "The  whole  Christian  world," 
it  was  scornfully  said,  "was  convulsed  over  a  diphthong!" 
Yes,  but  in  this  diphthongal  difference  lay  the  question, 
Whether  the  Word,  in  the  beginning  with  God,  is  God — 
and  Christianity  salvation ;  or  whether  the  Word,  not  in 
the  beginning,  is  a  creature — and  Christianity  a  sham. 

To  the  steadfastness  of  Athanasius  in  holding  to  one 
word,  through  all  the  bitterness  and  rage  of  partisanship, 
and  against  the  Church  and  world  combined  against  him ; 
we  owe,  under  God  the  entire  power  of  modern  evangelical 
Christianity.  The  Council  of  Nicaea  at  the  conclusion  voted 
with  him  to  a  man  and  his  creed  stands  untouched  com- 
pelling universal  assent,  to  this  day. 

Athanasius  contra  mundum!  Athanasius  against  the 
world.  For  forty-seven  years  single-handed  he  fought  the 
great  fight.  For  forty-seven  years,  commencing  from  the 
dissolution  of  the  Council  of  Nicsea,  he  kept  on  steadily 
asserting  his  "Homoousion!"  Five  times  he  was  driven 
into  exile.  The  Emperor  Constantine  brought  all  his 
power  to  bear  against  him.  His  enemies  slandered  him. 
Death  was  threatened  him.  His  friends  betrayed  him. 
His  pulpit  was  undermined  beneath  him.  Innumerable 
combinations  throughout  the  empire  were  secretly  arranged 
against  him.  The  Synod  of  Tyre  did  its  best,  on  lying 
charges  to  depose  him.  Still  he  lived  on  and  still  in 
Trumpet  tones  rang  out  incessantly  his  Homoousion,  "the 
same  in  substance,  equal  in  power  and  glory!" 

It  has  been  said  "No  man  can  fight  a  church !"  but  Luther 
fought  a  church  with  a  Pope  at  the  head  of  it,  and  Athana- 
sius fought  a  church  with  a  ring  ofArians  at  the  head  of 
it.  The  fact  is,  a  Christian  witness  called  of  God,  inspired 
of  God,  backed  by  God,  can  do  anything.  One  man  can 
stand  up  and  stand  successfully  against  any  body  of  wrong- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  473 

doers,  no  matter  what  the  number,  in  the  Church,  who  are 
attempting  to  remove,  to  neutralize,  or  to  obliterate  the 
Creed. 

Athanasius  was  driven  five  times  from  Alexandria.  Five 
times  he  returned.  Emperors  sought  to  put  him  down.  He 
outlived  Emperors.  Constantine,  Constans,  Constantine  II., 
Constantius,  Julian  the  Apostate,  Jovian,  all  died  but  Atha- 
nasius lived  on. 

Constantine  commanded  Athanasius  to  receive  Arius 
back  to  the  communion.  The  holy  man  replied :  "I  place 
my  life  at  the  disposal  of  the  emperor.  I  will  not  receive 
him  back !"     He  never  did  receive  him  back. 

Athanasius  outlived  all  his  enemies.  He  outlived  Arius. 
Arius  borne  along  in  a  procession  to  the  church  of  St. 
Irene  in  Constantinople,  where  he  was  by  imperial  orders 
to  receive  communion,  fell  by  the  wayside,  like  Judas,  and 
all  his  bowels  gushed  out.  They  picked  him  up  wallowing 
in  his  own  dissolutions  and  instead  of  carrying  him  to  the 
altar,  hurried  him  to  an  infamous  grave. 

Athanasius  emerged  from  a  life  which  has  been  described 
as  "one  protracted  martyrdom,"  crowned  with  years  and 
immortality  and  glory.  His  Name  is  interwoven  with  the 
imperishable  statements  of  his  creed.  His  personality — 
more  enduring  than  that  Pharos  of  his  own  Alexandria — 
where  with  pomp  of  lofty  ceremonial,  and  tribute  of  in- 
numerable tears  they  buried  him — stands  overlooking  still 
that  wide  and  stormy  ocean  of  the  speculative  thought;  on 
which  vast  fleets  at  sea  still  toss,  contend  and  founder ;  with 
eye  ubiquitous  and  steadfast,  solid  and  unmoved.* 


*Basil's  Eulogy  of  Athanasius. 


474  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 


JAMES  ARMINIUS. 

"The  lip  of  truth  shall  be  established  forever;  but  a  lying  tongue 
is  but  for  a  moment."    Prov.  12:19. 

Men  stand  behind  opinions  and  make  opinions.  There 
is  no  system  which  is  not  built  on  a  man  behind  it ;  which 
is  not  the  incarnation  of  a  man.  Find  out  what  the  man 
is  and  you  find  out,  at  once,  the  animus  of  his  system ;  even 
if  it  bewilders  and  mystifies  you,  you  may  know  what  will 
be  its  outcome.  Crookedness  can  only  come  from  a  schemer. 
Nonsense,  from  an  idiot.  Heresy  from  a  dissembler. 
Straightness  from  honesty.  Falsehood  from  one  who  is 
false,  and  truth  from  one  who  is  true. 

Character,  in  other  words,  stands  back  of  everything,  and 
character  alone  endures.  Genius  flashes.  Talent  looms  and 
shrinks,  but  character  is  of  a  stellar  and  an  undiminishable 
greatness.  Why?  Because  truth  is  the  summit  of  all  things, 
and  justice  is  truth  borne  out  in  affairs,  and  character  is 
this  moral  order  in  concrete  and  in  expression.  "It  is  the 
rectitude  which  is  perpetual  victory  and  cannot  be  displaced 
or  overthrown." 

Character  prevails  no  matter  how  the  voice  may  falter, 
or  be  drowned  in  cries,  for  it  is  the  calm  privilege  of  truth 
to  make  itself  believed. 

A  man  of  downright  sincerity  is  credited  however  he  may 
blunder.  A  man  of  cunning  is  suspected  even  when  his 
words  are  excellent  and  to  the  point.  The  devil  quoting 
Scripture  is  a  devil,  and  is  recognized  a  devil  however  he 
may  look  and  be  robed  like  an  angel  of  light. 

Character  cannot  be  simulated,  and  it  cannot  be  disguised. 
It  breaks  through  everything.  It  is  a  light  which  shines 
through  the  lantern,  however  battered  its  shape  or  smoky 
the  glass. 

This  fact  is  written  out  in  individual  lives.  Take  Abelard, 
at  one  time  reckoned  with  Dun  Scotus,  and  Anselm  and 
Thomas  Aquinas,  among  the  foremost  doctors  of  the  church. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  475 

He  was  guilty  of  an  immorality,  and  that  ruined  all  his 
works.  No  one  quotes  Abelard,  not  because  he  is  not 
masterly,  profound,  but  simply  on  account  of  a  defect  of 
character  which  nothing  can  repair. 

The  same  thing  re-appears  in  later  instances.  Over 
the  graves,  alas !  of  many  a  splendid  modern  career  has 
been  written  the  epitaph :  "How  art  thou  fallen,  O  Lucifer, 
Son  of  the  morning!" 

Character  stands  behind  everything.  It  is  that,  that 
abides.  It  is  not  what  a  man  knows,  or  acquires,  or  achieves, 
but  what  a  man  is  that  outlives  the  centuries.  Moses  and 
Paul  and  John  stand  on  their  moveless  pedestals  untouched 
by  the  fingers  of  time.  What  they  were,  they  are ;  and  what 
they  are,  they  will  be  through  the  unmeasured  and  im- 
measurable ages. 

The  Divine  Legation  of  Moses  is  and  remains  Mosaic; 
the  Divine  Doctrine  of  Paul,  Pauline — the  Divine  Apocalypse 
of  John  Johannean.  The  reason  is  that  truth  was  in  these 
men.     They  spoke  the  truth. 

Not  so  Judas — not  so  Hymenaeus  and  Philetus — not  so 
Pelagius — not  so  Servetus — not  so  Laelius  Socinus.  The 
words  of  these  men — false  as  themselves — ate  like  a  canker 
and  died  in  corruption. 

Their  works,  their  writings  perished — their  opinions  only 
live  in  books  which  write  them  down.  Pelagius  is  known 
from  Augustine — Servetus  from  Calvin — Socinus  from 
Turettin.  They  survive  as  dead  flies,  worthless  in  them- 
selves, embalmed  in  precious  amber.  They  furnish  most 
impressive  illustrations  of  the  Scripture  statement,  "The  lip 
of  truth  shall  be  established  forever,  but  a  lying  tongue 
is  but  for  a  moment." 

Another  illustration  is  Van  Harmin — James  Arminius — 
a  man  known  only  from  those  who  opposed  him.  Arminians 
themselves  never  speak  of  Arminius.  No  one  quotes  him 
but  to  confute  him.  He  lives  but  a  target — a  foil. 
No  man.  however  like  him,  or  however  in  harmony  with  his 
sentiments,  is  willing  to  own  him.  His  opinions  stand  but  as 
Theses  to  be  condemned. 

Fas  est  ab  hoste  doceri.  You  can  learn  as  much  from  the 
foes  of  a  system  as  you  can  from  its  friends.  Foes  draw 
attention  to  points,  which  friends  must  defend,  and  in  the 


476  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

defence  truth  takes  its  proportions  and  outlines,  and  looms 
up  brighter  and  brighter.  Had  it  not  been  for  Arminius 
there  would  have  been  no  Synod  of  Dort — no  five  points 
of  Grace  made  distinctive,  no  Calvinism  as  a  system,  and 
no  Westminster. 

To  this  one  man  then — to  his  life,  his  sentiments,  his  influ- 
ence— we  owe  our  Creed — just  as  we  owe  the  Crucifixion  to 
Judas. 

Arminius  put  the  same  things  in  his  day  which  men  are 
putting  now.  He  put  them  more  shrewdly — with  far  greater 
sagacity,  with  finer  tact,  and,  as  he  was  a  profounder  man 
than  any  of  our  nineteenth  century  errorists,  he  put  them  less 
defiantly,  less  coarsely  and  more  as  insinuations,  subtleties, 
suggestions — tropes  of  rhetoric — differences  of  mere  words. 
The  course  of  heresy,  however,  is  so  uniformly  the  same 
that  if  you  know  Arminius  you  know  every  man  of  his  class. 
Just  as  having  seen  one  serpent  you  know  forever,  after  that, 
what  is  the  serpentine  twist. 

Arminius,  or  as  the  Dutch  called  him,  Harmensen,  was 
born  at  Oudewater — a  quaint  old  town  of  South  Holland, 
lying  on  the  Yssel,  and  about  half  way  from  Rotterdam  to 
Utrecht.  This  was  in  the  year  1560 — fourteen  years  after 
the  death  of  Luther  and  four  years  previous  to  that  of 
Calvin. 

The  parents  of  Arminius  were  peasants,  and  while  he  was 
a  child  their  humble  home  was  burned  by  Spanish  soldiers — 
his  parents  murdered,  and  he  left  an  orphan. 

For  some  time  the  young  boy  was  employed  as  a  servant 
in  the  village  herberg  or  inn,  but  having  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  several  well  to  do  people  by  his  deftness  and 
cleverness,  he  was  kindly  taken  under  the  care  of  a  clergy- 
man, who  superintended  his  education  until  he  was  fitted 
to  enter  the  University  of  Utrecht.  During  his  course  at 
the  University  this  benefactor  died,  but  another  came  to 
his  rescue,  who  transferred  him  to  the  University  of  Mar- 
burg. From  thence  he  was  removed  again  to  Leyden,  and 
thus  enjoyed  superior  advantages  for  acquiring  what  of 
learning  and  culture  the  Dutch,  then  the  first  scholars  in 
Europe,  had  to  confer. 

At  length,  at  the  age  of  22,  to  round  out  his  studies,  he 
was  sent  to  Geneva,  where  he  had  the  high  privilege  of 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  477 

studying  under  Beza,   the  successor  of   Calvin,   in  whose 
arms  the  great  Reformer  died. 

Already,  in  Geneva,  the  spirit  of  Arminius  began  to 
show  itself.  To  great  activity  of  mind  and  ardor  of  in- 
quiry, he  added  a  self-sufficiency  and  self-assertion,  which 
soon  expressed  itself  in  whispered  criticisms  upon  the  pro- 
fessors, and  in  an  artful  sowing  of  the  seeds  of  discord, 
chiefly  by  means  of  private  conversations,  which  resulted 
in  drawing  together  a  party  of  young  malcontents,  and  led  to 
his  dismissal. 

This  circumstance  impaired  to  no  small  degree  the  confi- 
dence hitherto  placed  in  Arminius — but,  regarding  his  vaga- 
ries as  the  crudities  and  unintentional  irregularities  of  youth, 
which  larger  and  matured  experience  would  overcome,  his 
friends  resolved  to  overlook  them  and  projected  for  him  an 
extended  tour  through  Italy,  including  Rome.  Here  again, 
however,  the  unhappy  youth  proved  false  to  principle.  In 
Rome  he  adotped  the  maxim — "Do  as  Romans  do."  At 
least  he  is  accused  of  kissing  the  Pope's  toe  and  of  a  secret 
understanding  with  Bellarmine,  the  chief  antagonist  of 
Protestantism. 

His  cleverness,  however,  still  blinded  his  Netherland 
freinds  to  his  inward  dishonesty.  In  spite  of  strange  hints, 
now  and  then,  of  that  which  was  not  loyal,  Arminius  was 
elected  one  of  the  pastors  of  Amsterdam. 

Here,  while  posing  as  most  orthodox  among  the  orthodox, 
he  surreptitiously  promulged  opinions,  the  inevitable  ten- 
dency of  which  was  to  undermine  and  overthrow  the 
doctrine  professed  and  to  stir  distrust  and  dissension.  He 
was  soon  accused  of  not  loving  the  Doctrines  of  Grace, 
and  many  of  his  brethren  began  to  look  upon  him  and  upon 
his  expressions  with  deep  apprehension  . 

At  length,  in  1602,  the  illustrious  Francis  Junius,  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity  in  Leyden,  died,  and  the  friends  of 
Arminius    conspired  to  place  him  in  the  vacant  seat. 

Notwithstanding  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  the  staunch 
orthodox,  the  thing  was  accomplished,  and  Arminius  be- 
came the  professor — the  Classis,  however,  in  setting  him 
apart,  exacted  from  him  a  solemn  and  particular  promise 
and  pledge  that  if  it  should  be  found  that  he  held  any 
notions  other  than  those  of  the  Belgic  Confession,  he  would 


478  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

confess  this  in  private  to  his  ecclesiastical  peers  and  con- 
scientiously refrain  from  disseminating  them  broadcast. 

Arminius  agreed  to  this,  and  on  entering  upon  his  pro- 
fessorship, he  seemed  to  take  much  pains  to  clear  himself 
from  all  suspicion  by  publicly  proclaiming  the  received 
doctrines — doctrines  which  he  afterward  as  publicly  con- 
tradicted and  which  his  intimate  friends  acknowledged  were 
against  his  convictions  at  the  very  time. 

This  course  of  things  went  on  a  year  or  two,  when  it 
was  all  at  once  discovered  that  Arminius  was  in  the  constant 
practice  of  maintaining  one  set  of  opinions  in  the  pro- 
fessor's chair,  and  another  and  opposing  set  by  means  of 
private  manuscripts  and  talks  among  the  students.  He  was 
also  accustomed  while  publicly  commending  the  characters 
and  sentiments  of  the  Reformed  divines,  to  artfully  insinuate 
such  things  as  were  adapted  indirectly  to  bring  them  into 
discredit — lower  their  influence  and  weaken  their  hold  on 
the  popular  mind. 

It  was  observed  along  with  this,  that  those  who  associated 
with  Arminius  became  disaffected — fell  off  in  their  warmth 
of  attachment  to  principle,  and  were  often  dropping  words 
and  hints  which  could  not  but  do  damage  to  the  faith  and 
the  peace  of  the  Church. 

"In  this  posture  of  affairs,"  says  Dr.  Samuel  Miller,  to 
whose  valuable  essay  upon  the  Synod  of  Dort  I  am  in- 
debted for  assistance  in  regard  to  these  facts,  "In  this 
posture  of  affairs  the  magistrates  of  Leyden,  alarmed  by 
the  evils  which  were  at  work,  besought  Arminius  to  hold 
a  conference  with  his  colleagues  of  the  University,  before 
the  Classis,  respecting  those  doctrines  to  which  he  objected, 
that  the  extent  of  his  objections  might  be  ascertained 
and  made  known.  But  this  Arminius  declined.  In  the 
same  manner  he  treated  one  proposal  after  another — de- 
clining all  explanation — either  before  a  committee  or 
before  a  Church  Court.  Now  and  then  in  Synod  and 
Classis,  and  even  by  secular  men  the  attempt  was  made  to 
move  in  the  case,  but  Arminius  was  never  ready,  and  had 
always  insurmountable  objections  to  every  method  pro- 
posed. It  was  evident  that  he  wished  to  gain  time  in  which 
his  leaven  might  work — to  put  off  all  decisive  action  until 
he  should  have  such  an  opportunity  of  influencing  leading 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  479 

minds  in  the  country  as  eventually  to  prepare  them  to  side 
with  himself.  Thus  he  went  on,  evading,  postponing,  con- 
cealing, shrinking  from  investigation  and  endeavoring  in 
secret  to  throw  odium  upon  the  doctrines  and  their  adherents, 
hoping  thus  gradually  to  diminish  their  power  and  ultimate- 
lv  to  gain  a  majority  in  whatever  Synod  then  might  be 
called." 

"It  is  a  painful  narrative",  says  Dr.  Miller,  "but  may 
truly  be  affirmed  to  be  the  history  of  every  heresy  which  has 
ever  arisen  in  the  Christian  Church. 

"When  heresy  rises  in  an  Evangelical  body  it  is  never 
open  and  frank.  It  always  begins  by  skulking  and  assum- 
ing a  disguise.  Its  advocates,  when  together,  boast  of 
'advanced  thought,'  of  vast  improvements,  and  congratulate 
one  another  on  having  gone  greatly  beyond  the  'old  dead 
orthodoxy'  and  the  antiquated  errors  of  our  fathers,  but 
when  charged  with  deviations  from  the  accepted  faith  they 
complain  of  the  injustice  of  the  accusation  as  they  differ 
from  it  only  in  certain  expressions,  and  indeed  only  in 
words.  This  has  been  the  standing  course  of  errorists  ever 
since  the  apostolic  age.  They  are  almost  never  honest  and 
candid  as  a  party,  in  the  avowal  of  their  sentiments,  until 
they  gain  strength  enough  to  feel  sure  of  some  degree 
of  popular  support.  Thus  it  was  with  Arius  in  the  4th  Cen- 
tury, with  Pelagius  in  the  5th  Century,  with  Arminius  and 
his  companions  in  the  17th,  with  Amyraut,  the  father  of 
modern  New-Schoolism,  who  ruined  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
Huguenots  of  France,  with  Channing  and  the  Unitarians 
of  Massachusetts  when  the  last  century  came  in.  These  men 
denied  their  real  tenets,  evaded  examination  or  inquiry, 
declaimed  against  their  accusers  as  merciless  bigots  and 
heresy-hunters,  and  strove,  as  long  as  they  could,  to  agree 
with  their  orthodox  neighbors,  until  the  time  came,  when, 
partly  from  inability  to  hold  in  any  longer  and  partly  be- 
cause they  felt  strong  enough  to  come  out,  they  avowed  their 
real  opinions." 

An  illustration  of  the  working  of  the  same  corruption  has 
been  furnished  by  a  great  denomination  of  our  country  dur- 
ing the  last  two  decades  of  years,  and  while  granting  that 
the  rank  and  file  who  follow  their  beck  are  innocent  of  wrong 
intention  and  are  led  by  the  plausible  whispers  of  "progress" 


480  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

and  "peace,"  it  is  patent  to  all  observation  that  the  leaders 
of  the  so-called  "Revision"  are  men  of  precisely  the  spirit 
just  now  depicted — as  like  to  Arminius  as  Z  is  to  Zed. 

Finally,  in  the  case  of  Arminius,  as  in  the  present  juncture, 
there  was  a  universal  desire  that  a  Council  should  settle  it. 
From  the  Provinces  of  Holland  there  went  up  to  the  States 
General  a  petition  that  a  National  Synod  should  meet  "for 
the  purpose  of  revising  the  Belgic  Confession  and  the  Cate- 
chisms of  the  Church."  The  Synod  of  South  Holland  took 
alarm  at  this  and  begged  the  substitution  of  a  less  radical 
word  in  the  place  of  "revising." 

This  attempt  to  call  a  National  Synod,  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Arminius,  failed,  but  he  could  not  stave  off  the 
issue.  Finallv  the  nerve  of  the  Church  was  aroused.  Men 
like  Gomarus,  Voetius,  Bogerman  and  others  threw  off  their 
cowardice  and  a  Synod  embracing  representatives  from  the 
whole  Protestant  world  was  convened  in  the  city  of  Dort, 
for  the  purpose  of  helping  the  Synod  of  Holland  to  cope 
with  an  evil  now  grown  so  formidable  that  it  threatened, 
like  the  North  Sea,  to  beat  in  all  her  dykes. 

Before  that  Synod,  made  up  of  Commissioners  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  of  Bishops  of  the  Church  of  England, 
then  Calvinistic,  and  of  Delegates  from  Germany,  the  Palati- 
nate, Switzerland  and  France,*     Arminius  was  summoned. 

A  greater  summons,  however,  awaited  him.  Agitation 
and  horror  of  mind  seized  on  the  unhappy  man  in  his  49th 
year.  To  it  he  succumbed.  "In  his  last  sickness,"  says  his 
friend  and  apologist,  Bertius,  "he  was  sometimes  heard  to 
groan  and  sigh  and  cry  out  'Woe  is  me  my  mother,  that  thou 
hast  borne  me  a  man  of  strife  and  of  contention  to  the 
whole  earth.  I  have  lent  to  no  man  on  usury,  nor  have  men 
lent  to  me  on  usury,  yet  every  man  doth  curse  me !  '  " 

Such  is  the  report  of  his  friend.  Those  who  opposed  him 
did  not  hesitate,  however,  to  apply  to  him  those  words  of 
Zech.  xi:i7,  and  xiv:i2,  "Woe  to  the  idol  shepherd  that 
leaveth  the  flock !  The  sword  shall  be  put  upon  his  arm  and 
upon  his  right  eye ;  his  arm  shall  be  clean  dried  up  and  his 
ri^ht  eye  shall  be  utterly  darkened."  "And  this  shall  be 
the  plague  wherewith  the  Lord  will  smite  all  the  people  that 

*The  French  delegates  were  prevented  from  attending  by  their 
Roman  Catholic  King. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE.  481 

have  fought  against  Jerusalem :  Their  flesh  shall  consume 
away,  while  they  stand  upon  their  feet,  and  their  eyes  shall 
consume  away  in  their  holes,  and  their  tongue  shall  con- 
sume away  in  their  mouth."*  The  death  of  Arminius  is  like 
many  another  interposition  where  enmity  to  the  truth  and  to 
its  supporters  has  been  artful,  concealed,  wilful  and  virulent. 
God  has  a  way  of  reaching  the  case  which  is  beyond  the 
circle  of  man's  ken  or  action.  His  providence  adown  the 
ages  sets  its  solemn  seal  to  this  unalterable  fiat :  "The  lip 
of  truth  shall  be  established  forever,  but  a  lying  tongue  is 
but  for  a  moment." 

What  then  is  Arminianism?  As  Arminius  himself  first 
puts  it  in  1604.  it  sounds  very  innocent.  "God,  being  a  right- 
eous judge  and  kind  father,"  he  says,  "had,  from  the  be- 
ginning made  a  distinction  between  the  individuals  of  a 
fallen  race,  according  to  which  He  would  remit  the  sins  of 
those  who  should  give  them  up,  and  put  their  trust  in  Christ, 
and  would  bestow  on  them  eternal  life;  also  that  it  is  agree- 
ble  to  God,  that  all  men  be  converted,  and,  having  come  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  remain  therein,  but  He  compels 
no  one."f 

This  sounds  plausible  and  innocent  until  you  put  beside 
it  the  clear  statement  of  the  fact.  God,  from  eternity,  from 
a  fallen,  lost  race,  hath  chosen  some  to  salvation.  From 
this  i's  comes  about  that  these  are  drawn  to  faith  and  piety, 
and  by  God's  grace  preserved.  The  remainder  of  the  human 
race  are  left  in  their  original  and  natural  condition  of  de- 
pravity— go-on  to  sin  and  die  in  condemnation." 

Take  the  Arminian  statement  and  pull  it  to  pieces.  It  is 
ba>ed  on  Free  Will  and  no  fall. 

Man  can  determine  himself  either  way  as  he  likes.  God 
foreseeing  this,  decrees  that  those  who  choose  holiness  shall 
be  saved,  and  that  those  who  do  not  shall  be  lost.  In  other 
words,  God  has  nothing  to-do  with  salvation  except  to  reg- 
ister  human  decisions  as  they  occur.  •  He  does  not  know  who, 
or  not.  will  be  saved,  but  waits  on  the  after  event  for  in- 
formation,- and  to  gather  up  whatever  control  of  the  creature 
He  may. 

Calvinism  denies  this  statement  at  its  every  point. 

♦Harjsen,  "Reformed  Church  in. the   Netherlands," 
jHansen.  .  .  ....... 


482  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

Man  is  fallen.  A  sunken  creature,  he  is  still  sinking  by 
his  own  weight.  His  tendency  is  down.  He  is  a  stone  which 
has  dropped  from  a  steeple,  and  cannot  lift  itself  up.  He 
is  water  running  down  hill,  which  cannot  flow  back. 

He  cannot,  therefore,  determine  himself  in  the  upward 
direction  toward  God,  but  is  dead  to  holiness  and  dead  in 
sin.  God,  therefore,  must  come  in  to  quicken.  "You  hath 
He  quickened  who  were  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins." 

How  many  God  will  quicken,  awaken  and  draw  to  Him- 
self, God  must  determine.  The  choice  is  His.  He  must 
choose.  Yea,  He  has  chosen  already,  and  from  eternity 
foreknows  His  people  whom  He  has  ordained. 

Arminianism  is  the  doctrine  of  Satan  and  makes  man  a 
god.  Calvinism  is  the  Doctrine  of  Christ,  and  makes  man 
the  poor  and  needy,  helpless  undeserving  debtor  of  un- 
merited Free  Grace. 

Calvinism,  in  experience,  is  based  on  New  Birth.  This 
is  an  argument  which  does  not  weigh  wth  the  Arminian  be- 
cause he  has  no  new  birth. 

If  you  try  to  describe  a  Sapadillo  to  one  who  never  tasted, 
never  saw  the  fruit,  you  leave  no  impression. 

By  and  by  some  one  else  comes  along  and  denies  that  Sapa- 
dillos  are  sweet,  or  that  there  is  such  a  fruit.  Your  man 
does  not  know.  He  does  not  care.  He  cannot.  He  has  no 
interest. 

But  here  is  another.  He  comes  from  the  West  Indies. 
He  has  eaten  Sapadillos  all  his  life — has  seen  them  grow. 

You  mention  Sapadillos,  and  this  Cuban  cries,  "I  know 
that  fruit.  It  is  sweet  like  honey  and  round  and  breaks  in- 
to three  segments — a  black  seed  in  each  segment.  Oh,  I 
have  eaten  them  10,000  times."  If  any  one  denies  these 
things  he  will  contend  it. 

Our  arguments  from  the  new-birth  seem  light  and  empty 
to  a  natural  man.  He  runs  right  back  to  choices.  "I  chose," 
or  "did  not  choose."    "I,"  "I,"— His  religion  is  "I." 

But  here  is  another  who  has  had  another  experience.  He 
chose  and  chose,  and  still  remained  what  he  was.  He  re- 
solved and  resolved  and  broke  down.  He  turned  over  a 
new  leaf,  and  lo !  it  was  the  old  leaf  blotted.  Then  God 
came  in  and  touched  on  his  life.  Something  moved  him ;  he 
hardly  knew  what,  and  infused  a  new  spirit  within  him. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  483 

And  now,  this  second  man  cries  "God!"  "God!"  His  re- 
ligion is  interposition.  God  came  in  and  God  made  me 
willing:  God  chose  "Salvation  is  of  the  Lord." 

This  thing  is  to  the  Jew  a  stumbling  block — to  the  Greek 
foolishness.  It  must  be.  These  men — the  Jew,  the  ritualist; 
the  Greek,  the  intellectual  thinker — never  experienced  it. 
They  never  got  beyond  opinions,  sentiment,  endeavors,  cere- 
monies of  the  church — a  few  resolutions  and  tears. 

What  do  they  know  of  a  mystery — an  inward  revelation 
of  Christ — a  true  revolution  of  nature?  How  can  they 
ascribe  all  the  glory  to  God?    It  is  absurd  even  to  think  it. 

The  Arminian  denies  that  God  might  justly  pass  by  our 
guilty  lost  race,  as  He  did  pass  by  angels.  He  denies  that, 
in  fact,  God  passes  by  any.  He  holds  that  the  same  chance 
is  given  to  all — the  same  appliances — the  same  gracious  as- 
sistance and  the  same  power.     If  not,  he  cries  "Unfair!" 

Whoever  wills  then,  originates,  over  and  above  these 
things  common  to  all,  his  own  act.  He  distinguishes 
himself,  and  makes  himself,  to  differ.  He  saves  his  ownself 
and  owes  to  God  nothing  which  God  did  not  owe  him  be- 
fore. 

"God,  if  He  let  the  race  fall,  was  bound,"  says  the  Armin- 
ian, "to  provide  a  Saviour  for  the  fallen.  He  was  also  bound 
to  give  an  equal  grace  to  all,  that  all  may  get  hold  of  that 
Saviour.  If  all  have  an  equal  grace,  then  those  who  USE 
it,  make  themselves  to  differ." 

That  flatly  contradicts  St.  Paul,*  reverses  the  whole 
Bible,  and,  to  His  face,  withstands  Almighty  God. 

The  other  system,  the  system  which  opposes  Arminius, 
holds  that  God — regarding  a  fallen,  guilty,  lost,  sinful  race 
— a  race  deserving  to  die,  hath  mercy  on  whom  He  himself 
will  have  mercy.  All  are  hell  deserving,  but  He  rescues  a 
multitude  whom  no  man  can  number  by  the  distinguishing 
grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  by  the  blood  of  His  beloved 
Son. 

For  this  Gospel  system  there  are  these  things  to  say: 

1st.  It  bows  to  God  and  submits  to  His  sovereignty. 
"Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right." 

*t  Cor.  iv.7. — "For  who  maketh  thee  to  differ  from  another?  and 
what  hast  thou  that  thou  didst  not  receive?  Now  if  thou  didet 
receive  it,  why  dost  thou  glory,  as  if  thou  hadst  not  received  it?" 


484  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

2d.  While  not  free  from  difficulties  to  our  carnal  finite 
reason,  it  covers  the  facts  of  the  case,  as  the  other  does  not. 
We  feci  that  we  are  fallen.  We  feel  we  are  helpless.  We 
feel  we  cannot  save  ourselves  nor  help  to  do  it,  and  that  we 
need  to  be  saved. 

3d.  The  Bible  system  turns  on  faith,  not  choices,  efforts 
which  are  works.  It  hinges  salvation  on  faith.  "I,  Martin 
Luther,  an  unworthy  preacher  of  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  thus  profess  and  believe  that  this  article :  That 
faith  alone  without  works  can  justify  before  God,  shall 
never  be  overthrown,  neither  by  the  Emperor,  nor  by  the 
Turk,  nor  by  the  Tartar,  nor  by  the  Persian,  nor  by  the  Pope 
with  all  his  Cardinals,  Bishops,  sacrificers,  monks,  nuns. 
Kings,  Princes,  powers  of  this  world,  nor  yet  by  all  the  devils 
in  hell.  This  article  shall  stand  fast  whether  they  will  or  no. 
This  is  the  true  Gospel.  Jesus  Christ  redeemed  us  from 
our  sins  and  He  only.  This  most  firm  and  certain  truth  is 
the  voice  of  Scripture,  though  the  world  and  all  the  devils 
rage  and  roar.  If  Christ  alone  takes  away  our  sins,  we  can- 
not do  it  by  our  works ;  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  embrace 
Christ  but  by  faith,  so  He  cannot  be  embraced  by  works. 
Faith  then,  must  embrace  Christ,  before  works  can  follow, 
and  it  must  embrace  Him  and  hold  him  alone,  without  any 
consideration  whatever  of  works.  This,  this  only  is  the 
Gospel.     In  it  will  I  abide.    Amen  and  Amen !" 

4th.  If  faith  and  faith  alone  embraces  Christ,  then  this 
faith,  going  out  into  the  invisible,  to  embrace  One  whom 
I  have  never  seen  with  my  eyes,  and  to  cast  on  Him  my 
whole  destiny,  is  a  God-given  faith — a  special  distinguish- 
ing faith,  not  common  to  all — not  possible  to  all."  "The 
faith  of  God's  elect!' 

.  5th.  Every  man  who  has  this  kind  of  faith  knows  where  it 
comes  from  and.  recognizes  it  as  something  immortal — 
nart  of  his  new-nature  which  cannot  be  lost. 

To  recapitulate.  If  I  am  Arminian,  I  must  deny  Predes- 
tination and  I  must  hold — 

1st.  That  our  race  possesses  a  free-will' to  do  that  which 
is  good.  .  ' 

2d.  That  justification  comes  by  .a  meritorious  faith— i.  e,. 
by  a  faith  of  my  own,  and  which  merits. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  485 

3d.  That  if  the  faith  is  my  own  and  from  me,  I  may  lose 
it,  and  there  is  no  certain  assurance. 

If  I  am  a  Calvinist  I  assert,  on  the  other  hand,  Predes- 
tination,— then, 

1st  Man  fallen  has  no  free-will  to  do  what  is  pleasing  to 
God. 

2d.  Justification  is  by  faith,  which  is  "the  gift  of  God." 
3d.  "The  gifts  and  calling  of  God  are  without  repent- 
ance" on  God's  part — or  my  part.     Once  a  believer  always 
a  believer.     "My  sheep  shall  never  perish." 

The  battle,  then,  is  seen  to  range  around  the  first  point. 
"Down  with  predestination !"  is  the  cry  of  all  the  enemies 
of  Evangelic  truth.  "Get  that  doctrine  out  and  we  will 
agree." 

"Yes,"  is  our  answer,  "Get  that  out  and  you  get  all  out." 

But  why  contend  it  ? 

Because  we  are  set  of  God  to  contend  it.  Because  to 
save  the  Creed  is  to  save  not  one  soul,  but  the  Church  and 
through  her — missions  and  the  millions  of  unsaved. 

Because  the  battle  of  truth  is  the  battle  of  life.  Better  die 
than  lie,  or  run  from  a  lie  because  we  fear  to  face  it. 

"We  ought  to  set  ourselves,"  says  Calvin  in  his  sermon 
on  Hymenseus  and  Philetus — "We  ought  to  set  ourselves 
against  perversions  of  the  truth  and  to  rebuke  them  sharply. 
For  if  we  wink  at  them  and  let  them  pass,  we  give  them 
our  support.  And  then  we  may  boast  as  we  please  about  be- 
ing Christians,  but  there  are  more  devils  among  us  than 
Christians  if  we  countenance  falsehood." 

"Therefore" — goes  on  the  Reformer — "therefore,  let  us 
look  well  to  the  Doctrine  intrusted  to  us,  and  if  we  see  wick- 
ed persons  trying  to  infect  the  Church  of  God,  to  darken 
the  doctrine  or  to  destroy  it,  let  us  endeavor  to  bring  their 
works  to  light  that  every  one  may  behold  them,  and  thereby 
be  enabled  to  shun  them.  If  we  attend  not  to  these  things 
we  are  traitors  to  God  and  have  no  zeal  for  His  honor,  nor 
for  the  salvation  of  his  Church.  We  must  be  the  out  and  out 
enemies  of  wickedness,  if  we  will  serve  God.  It  is  not 
enough  for  us  to  refrain  ourselves  from  wrong  and  sin,  but 
we  must  condemn  these  as  much  as  possible  that  they  may 
not  gain  influence  or  get  the  upper  hand." 


486  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE. 

These  trumpet  tones  of  Calvin  tell  us  how  men  spoke  and 
felt  to  whom  God's  truth  was  dear,  in  times  that  tried  men's 
souls. 

My  brother,  do  men,  of  this  day,  class  thee  along  with 
the  Puritans?     Then 

"Bear  the  honor  well,  right  noble  is 
Thine  ancestry;  and  if  thro'  following  Him, 

Who  bore  thy  sin,  the  world  should  frown, 
Lift  up  thy  head — fear  not, 

For  He  who  made  thee  His, 
Will  give  thee  courage,  honor,  influence, 

And  that  true  victory  which  ever  crowns 
His  free-born  sons?" 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  487 


THE  CREED^PRINCIPLE  IN  RELIGION 

II  Tim.i  :i3. 
"Hold  fast  the  form  of  sound  words." 

There  are  three  great  principles  in  religion — the  Church- 
principle,  the  Creed-principle  and  the  Life-principle. 

Advantages  inhere  in  each.  The  Church-principle  com- 
pels propriety,  decorum,  uniformity  of  worship.  The  Life- 
principle  compels  evangelization,  revival.  Neither  is  safe 
without  the  third,  the  Creed-principle.  This  determines 
everything.    Why  ? 

1.  Because  religion  is  based  on  a  Book. 

2.  Because  the  Book  contains  a  complete  and  perfect 
revelation. 

3.  Because  the  author  of  the  Book  cannot  lie — deny  Him- 
self, contradict  Himself — change. 

4.  Because  the  Book  contains  principles  which,  therefore, 
stand  forever. 

5.  Because  we  are  born  again  out  of  the  Book — made  to 
believe  and  conform  to  certain  principles.  And  because, 
apart  from  these  principles,  however  decorous  and  impress- 
ive our  worship,  however  intense  our  enthusiasm,  our  relig- 
ion is  vain. 

No  doubt  a  man  may  get  to  know  these  principles  theo- 
retically and  be  unaffected  by  them,  but  no  man  can  know. 
receive  and  love  them  in  his  heart  without  being  saved.  It 
is  this  which  makes  the  Creed-principle — the  Doctrinal 
principle — the  strongest  and  most  respected  form  of  Relig- 
ion on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Whether  it  be  Paul,  Augus- 
tine— the  Waldensian  and  Bohemian  martyrs — Scotch 
Covenanters,  or  Dutch  Calvinists  who  preach,  there  is  no 
form  so  pure  as  that  which  is  built  on  a  definite,  inspired 
and  God-given  Creed. 

The  axiom  we  lay  down  is  that  ''Truth  is  in  order  to 
holiness."  That  men  are  saved  by  knowledge — the 
knowledge  of  God.  That  they  are  lost  through  igno- 
rance. That  the  church  is,  first  of  all  a  teacher,  that 
her  ministers,  the  prophets  of  the  Lord,  in  all  ages,  stand 


488  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

in  her  pulpits  with  the  Bible  in  their  hands  to  declare  those 
facts  on  which  eternity  is  to  be  builded.  That  men  are  en- 
lightened by  the  truth,  Ps.  43  :3 — made  free  by  the  truth, 
John  8:32 — begotten  again  by  the  Word  of  truth,  Jas. 
1:18 — chosen  unto  salvation  through  belief  of  the  truth, 
II  Thess.  2:13 — sanctified  by  the  truth,  John  17:17,  and 
preserved  by  it,  Col.  1-23.  On  the  other  hand  that  men 
are  lost  if  they  do  not  receive  the  love  of  the  truth,  II 
Thess.  2:10 — if  they  do  not  come  to  the  knowledge  of  it, 
I  Tim.  2:4 — if  they  do  not  believe  it,  II  Thess.  2:12 — if 
they  resist  it,  II  Tim.  4:4 — if  they  do  not  obey  it,  Rom. 
2 :8.    The  Creed,  therefore,  is  everything. 

"As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he."  As  a  church 
thinketh,  so  is  she.  Change  a  man's  principles  and  you 
change  his  character.  Change  a  church's  Creed  and  you 
have  destroyed  her.  She  may  keep  the  old  name ;  she  is 
not  the  old  church.  She  cannot  be  relied  upon  any  more. 
She  does  not  make  the  men  she  did.  Her  atmosphere  is 
not  the  same.  She  does  not  have  the  same  influence.  The 
world  knows  this  even  better  than  she  does. 

A  church  to  be  respected  must  respect  herself.  To  re- 
spect herself  she  must  have  a  conviction — she  must  be  posi- 
tive. Men  cannot  respect  what  shifts  and  changes — what 
teaches  one  thing  in  one  century  and  another  thing  in  an- 
other— one  thing  to  one  generation  and  another  thing  to 
another.  This  makes  imperative  the  Divine  injunction, 
"Hold  fast  the  Form  of  sound  words." 

Consider, 

I.     God's  words  are  sound  words. 
II.     They  have  a  Form. 
III.     This  Form  of  sound  words  we  are  to  hold  fast. 


I.     God's  words  are  sound  words. 

They  claim  this,  "The  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure  words," 
Ps.  12:6.  Thirty  times  this  same  word,  pure,  is  spoken  of 
the  gold  of  the  tabernacle.  The  ark  was  to  be  overlaid 
with  pure  gold — the  Mercy  Seat  was  to  be  overlaid  with 
pure  gold — nothing  mixed.  In  God's  words  is  nothing 
doubtful,   ambiguous,    weak,    unreliable.     "Every    word   of 


THE   DOCTRIXES   OF   GRACE.  489 

God  is  pure,"  Prov.  30:5.  The  word  here  is  nans  "stands 
fire  as  if  in  a  furnace."  'Thy  word  is  very  pure,""iKD — pure 
even  to  vehemence — over  exceedingly.  In  this  last  ex- 
pression the  Hebrew  exhausts  itself.  Xo  question  that  the 
words  are  sound,  as  sound  as  God  is — as  absolute  in  their 
last  meaning  as  are  the  elements  in  God. 

God's  words  are  sound,  for  they  claim  it.  God's  words 
are  sound,  for  they  are  His  words.  It  is  distinctly  asserted 
that  the  "word  of  the  Lord"  came  to  such  and  such  a  writer. 
Not  that  the  Spirit  came,  which  is  true  enough,  but  that 
the  word  came.  Not  that  the  thought,  the  suggestion,  came 
for  the  man  to  clothe  and  express  as  he  pleased;  but  the 
word  which  expressed  it  came — the  Dabar  Jehovah.  And  it 
is  said  Hayo,  Haya  Dabar,  that  it  substantially  came,  ex- 
actly came — the  word  itself  came.  'Ts  not  My  word  like 
as  a  fire  saith  the  Lord" — "words"  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
teacheth — the  zvords. 

God's  words  are  sound,  for  they  are  God  himself.  A 
man's  word  is  his  manifestation.  If  the  man  be  false  his 
words,  however  plausible,  are  false.  If  the  man  be  true,  his 
words  are  true.    God's  words  are  God  Himself  in  expres- 

God's  words  are  sound  words — all  of  them  sound  words, 
sion. 

one  less  than  sound  annihilates  them  all.  But,  if  the  words 
are  sound,  then  what  they  say  is  sound,  i.  e.,  the  state- 
ments. God  does  not  give  the  words  and  leave  men  to 
manipulate  them,  nor  does  He  use  sound  and  pure  words 
to  cover  and  disguise  His  thoughts.  He  sets  the  words  in 
order.  The  Hebrew  121  means  not  only  to  speak  but  to 
marshal  in  sentences.  God  does  not  fling  out  pure  words 
in  a  confused  medley  like  one  insane.  He  uses  words  to 
state  facts,  propositions — facts  and  propositions  which  have 
a  certain,  fixed,  personal,  eternal  bearing.  "My  words 
shall  surely  stand,"  Jer.  44:29.  "Heaven  and  earth  shall 
pass  away  but  My  words  shall  not  pass  away."  Mark  13:31. 
"He  that  receiveth  not  my  words  hath  One  that  iudgeth 
him.  The  word  that  I  have  spoken  the  same  shall  judge  him 
in  the  last  day,"  John  12  :48. 

God's  words  are  sound  words.  All  God's  words  are 
sound  words.  Xo  other  words  but  God's  are  sound  words. 
In  all  nature,  in  all  philosophy,  in  all  science,  there  is  not 


490  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

one  word  that  will  stand  the  test  of  soundness  which  is  not 
an  echo  of  the  words  of  God.  Not  one  human  utterance 
but  is  fallible.  Not  one  that  can  stand  scrutiny.  "Add 
thou  not  unto  His  words  lest  he  reprove  thee  and 
thou  be  found  a  liar,"  Prov.  30:6.  Put  anything  you 
please  of  man's  fabric  under  a  microscope;  it  goes  to 
pieces ;  it  reveals  its  coarseness.  Put  any  work  of  God 
— a  fly's  wing,  for  instance,  under  a  microscope,  and 
the  higher  the  power,  the  more  exquisite,  the  more  deli- 
cate the  tissues,  until  it  attenuates  almost  to  the  silken  and 
gossamer  filaments  of  a  seraph's.  So  it  is  with  the  words 
of  God.  They  alone  are  sound,  are  pure.  They  repel  any 
attempt  to  wrest,  vitiate,  clip,  splinter,  cleave  or  gloss 
them.  "Forever,  O  Lord,  Thy  word  is  settled  in  heaven" — 
more  fixed  than  the  fixed  stars,  than  Pleiades — than  Orion. 
Go  up  into  heaven,  God's  words  do  not  alter.  They  will 
all  be  found  written  there. 

II.  There  is  a  Form  of  sound  words. 

The  words  contain  statements.  The  statements  can  be 
put  into  Form.    We  cannot  get  away  from  the  Form. 

The  Form  must  be  the  consensus  of  the  statements — 
their  harmonious  agreement  arrived  at  by  a  comparison  of 
spiritual  things  with  spiritual. 

The  Form  can  never  contradict  itself ;  or  declare  that  to 
be  true  at  one  time  which  may  be  proved  to  be  false  at 
another.  For  instance,  it  cannot  say  for  300  years  "Hell 
is  eternal,"  and  then  at  the  end  of  that  time  say  "Hell  is  a 
second  probation."  A  plain,  categorical  statement  will 
have  to  stand  in  the  form.  It  is  there,  if  there  at  all,  to 
stay  forever. 

If  Arithmetic  says  twice  2  make  4,  then  twice  2  make  4 
everywhere.  You  cannot  come  later  and  say  "Yes,  twice 
2  made  4  in  the  year  1600,  but  it  makes  6  3-4  to-day  or  10,- 
000  to-day."  Twice  2  make  4  binds.  Those  who  deal  with 
figures  find  that  it  binds.  The  cashier  who  in  keeping  his 
books  mistakes  in  that  matter  finds  his  mistake  represented 
as  crime.  You  cannot  play  fast  and  loose  with  Arithme- 
tic, and  neither  can  you  with  religion.  A  proposition  taken 
from  the  word  of  God  binds  to  eternity. 

Take  Arithmetic  again.   The  true  notion  is  that  however 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  49* 

high  one  may  go  in  mathematics,  Geometry,  Trigonometry, 
the  Parabola,  Conic  Sections,  always  the  four  fundamental 
rules,  Addition,  Subtraction,  Multiplication  and  Division, 
remain  the  same.  This  is  the  notion  of  Orthodox  Theology 
— of  an  unchangeable  Creed.  It  is  not  that  there  are  no 
degrees  and  no  advances  in  the  knowledge  of  truth,  but 
only  that  there  are  none  which  vitiate  and  destroy  already- 
laid-down  Divine  propositions-.  Old  Orthodoxy  says : 
"You  cannot  get  a  complete  line  of  rail  by  pulling  up  rails 
already  laid  down,  or  by  letting  every  man  lay  rails  for 
himself  without  any  regard  to  the  Chief  who  has  the  enter- 
prise in  hand — the  Engineer — the  Projector."  The  conten- 
tion of  the  men  who  stand  by  the  Creed  is,  that  funda- 
mental Doctrines  taken  from  the  word  of  God  and  stated  in 
it,  like  the  four  principles  of  Arithmetic  rule  everywhere— 
that  whatever  discoveries  men  may  make  in  Science,  or  in 
the  Bible  they  never  can  discover  anything  which  does  not 
involve  and  go  to  confirm  what  has  already  been  found  to 
be  basal  and  axiomatic  in  Scripture.  If  Depravity  has  been 
a  fact,  it  is  now  a  fact.  If  election  was  true  in  Paul's  day 
and  in  Eph.  1 :3-5<  then  it  is  true  this  moment  that  "God  hath 
chosen  us  in  Christ  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  hav- 
ing predestined  us  unto  the  adoption  of  children." 

Now  the  higher  critics  contend  that  twice  2  do  not  any 
longer  make  4,  that  they  may  make  6,  10,  25,  anything — 
that  the  time  has  come  for  a  new  Arithmetic  adapted  to  a 
newer  and  larger  Geometry,  Trigonometry,  Conic  Sections 
and  Measurements  of  the  Universe.  That  "twice  2  make  4" 
is  narrow,  antiquated — the  ghost  of  old  Calvin  is  in  twice  2 
make  4.  Wir  brauchcn  jetzt  ein  neues  Dogma — we  want  a 
new  Arithmetic,  up  to  date,  adapted  to  the  enlarged  knowl- 
edge and  the  wider  outlook  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Some  of  us  are  fools  enough  to  stick  to  it  that  twice  2 
still  make  4,  that  there  are  some  things  which  even  the 
twentieth  century — wise  as  it  is  beyond  all  former  wisdom 
— cannot  change,  that  are  eternal  because  God  is  eternal, 
immutable  because  facts  are  self-consistent. 

For  my  part  I  am  glad  that  there  are  some  things — the 
bottom  things — the  things  which  one  wants  upon  a  dying 
bed,  that  do  not  change.  "If  the  foundations  be  destroyed 
what  can  the  righteous  do"? 


492  THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

If  twice  2  make  4  then  this  is  true  everywhere.  That 
makes  the  Creed.  Depravity,  the  fall,  is  in  the  word  of 
God.  In  it  once,  in  it  everywhere;  in  the  Creed,  therefore 
it  must  be  everywhere.  So  with  Election,  the  Redemption 
of  the  Church,  her  Calling  and  Preservation. 

Here  is  a  five-pointed  star !  To  be  perfect,  we  say  all 
the  lines  and  angles  must  correspond — must  be  equal.  You 
may  enlarge  the  star,  you  may  expand  its  proportions  and 
discover  a  thousand  things  inside  its  lines,  but  the  outlines, 
project  them  how  you  please,  cannot  alter,  the  proportions 
cannot  change. 

The  Higher  Critics,  the  Creed  Changers,  say  they  can 
alter.  Thev  say,  "You  can  shorten  Election,  make  it  con- 
ditional or  leave  it  out  altogether,  and  not  distort  the  star." 
They  say,  you  can  reduce  the  angle  of  Depravity  and  still 
keep  exact  and  right  proportions. 

We  say  ''the  sides  of  the  angle  may  be  extended,  but 
the  angle  itself  cannot  change,  or  you  have  changed  the 
star." 

There  is,  then,  a  Form  of  Sound  words,  a  form  which 
would  have  to  come  back  again  if  every  Synod  on  earth 
should  vote  it  out  of  existence — a  Form  which  would  stand 
if  every  Book  of  Divinity  in  the  world  should  be  burned  up 
— a  Form  which  would  emerge  and  come  to  be  recognized 
by  evangelized  pagans  who  had  never  yet  heard  of  a  Creed. 
In  other  words,  there  is  a  System  of  Doctrine  in  the  Bible 
— fundamental,  coherent,  self-consistent — the  intellectual 
belief  in  which  constitutes  speculative  Christianity,  the  cor- 
dial reception  of  which  constitutes  spiritual  Christianity — 
but  the  rejecton  of  which  is  heresy.  The  Creed  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  systematic  ordering  of  the  facts  and 
doctrines  of  Divine  Revelation.  The  facts  and  doctrines, 
being  revealed,  cannot  change.  The  Creed,  therefore,  never 
can  change. 

Does  this  elevate  the  Creed  to  a  level  with  Scripture? 
Do  we,  as  the  Remonstrants  in  old  time  charged  upon  the 
Church  of  Holland,  hold  the  Creed  to  be  a  "Little  Bible?" 

Nothing  of  the  sort.  The  Creed  is  but  a  short  Compen- 
dium of  Bible  teaching — a  series  of  statements  drawn  from 
the  Word  of  God,  defining  true  doctrine.  Something  essen- 
tial to  it  and  of  the  last  importance,  since  men  the  world 


THE   DOCTRINES   OE   GRACE.  493 

over  assert  and  strongly  assert  that  they  believe  the  Bible 
who  know  very  little  about  the  Bible  and  who  cherish  and 
define  opinions  flatly  opposed  to  the  teachings  of  the  Bible. 
Unitarians  pretend  to  receive  the  Bible,  Christian  Scien- 
tists to  receive  the  Bible,  Arminians  to  receive  the  Bible, 
Romanists  to  receive  the  Bible.  It  has  even  impiously 
been  held  by  some  that  you  can  prove  anything  out  of  the 
Bible — and  so,  in  a  certain  way,  you  can.  By  taking  a  sin- 
gle word  or  sententce  by  itself,  apart  from  the  connection — 
men  can  prove  Christ  to  be  a  mere  man  because  he  is  called 
"the  Son  of  num."  They  can  prove  that  all  men  will  be 
saved  because  it  says  he  is  "the  Saviour  of  all  men,"  and 
again,  that  "he  tasted  death  for  every"  (man.)  They  can 
prove  that  men  can  convert  themselves  and  that  they  have 
a  free-will  because  it  says  "Turn  ye — turn  ye,  for  why  will 
ye  die?"  They  can  prove  that  a  man  is  saved  by  his  works 
because  St.  James  says :  "Was  not  Abraham  justified  by 
works  ?"  They  can  prove  that  there  is  no  Trinity  because 
the  word  is  not  in  the  Bible  and  because  the  Bible  says: 
"The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord." 

You  take  any  document,  or  any  man's  speech  or  sermon 
and  treat  it  that  way  and  you  can  twist  it  like  a  nose  of  wax. 

The  Creed  means  a  painstaking  putting  together  of  just 
what  the  Bible  teaches,  viz.:  The  putting  of  "Son  of  God" 
along  with  "Son  of  man."  It  finishes  the  sentence  "He  is 
the  Saviour  of  all  men"  by  adding,  "especially  of  them  that 
believe,"  and  by  putting  the  full  connection  "He  tasted 
death  for  every  one  of  them,"  (the  word  man  is  not  in  the 
Greek)  "He  tasted  death  for  every  one  of  them  that  in 
bringing  many  sons  to  glory,  He  might  make  the  Captain 
of  their  Salvation  perfect  "through  suffering."  It  supple- 
ments the  words  "Turn  ve,  turn -ye"  by  the  words,  "Surely 
after  that  I  was  turned  I  repented,"  "Turn  us  unto  Thee, 
O  Lord,  and  we  shall  be  turned." 

The  Creed  rs  not  intended  to  take  the  place  of  the  Most 
Holy  Scripture,  for  which  earthly  frail  and  dying  man 
should  cherish  that  reverence;  and  that  trembling  fear  which 
becomes  a  guilty  and  condemned  creature,  for  that  word 
of  the  God  of  Heaven  and  Earth 'which  alone  reveals  t6 
him  a  way  of  deliverance  out  of  an  unspeakably'  miserable 
and  lost  condition  into  a  state:of  bl'es'sed  eternal  salvatibri. 


494  THE  DOCTRINES   OF  GRACE. 

The  point  was  well  stated  by  Hadrian  Saravia  in  his  letter 
to  Utenbogaart.  "No  one  who  has  placed  his  hand  to  such 
a  work,  has  ever  thought  to  publish  a  Canon  of  Faith  but 
only  to  prove  his  faith  out  of  the  Canon." 

The  importance  of  the  Creed  lies  in  this — that  we  have  in 
it  instruction,  preservation, — a  bond  of  unity,  and  de- 
fense. Taught  by  it,  we  advance  on  right  lines  steadily, 
surely.  Its  contents  hold  and  transmit  the  truth  of  God  to 
our  children.  Bound  together  by  the  Creed  we  are  a  soli- 
darity. Its  statements  form  a  compact  and  logical  defense 
of  the  faith  against  the  attacks  of  its  foes. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  thus  built  up  in  the  ef- 
forts of  the  early  Church  to  prove  from  Scripture  that 
Christ — God-man  in  two  natures,  is  the  Eternal  Son  of 
God. 

The  doctrine  of  Depravity  was  thus  defined  in  opposition 
to  Pelagius  and  others,  who  denied  the  fall,  and  taught  that 
man  by  nature  is  sinless  and  innocent. 

The  doctrine  of  Sovereign  Grace  was  thus  emphasized  by 
men  who — in  opposition  to  those  who  contended  that  men 
can  save  themselves  or  help  to  save  themselves  by  works 
and  merits  and  the  action  of  their  independent  wills — 
taught  that  "if  it  be  of  works  it  is  no  more  of  grace" — "so 
then  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth  nor  of  him  that  runneth, 
but  of  God  that  sheweth  mercy." 

The  Creed  is  the  building  up,  upon  the  sure  foundations 
of  the  Word  of  God,  of  bulwarks  which  are  the  bastions  and 
the  Redan  of  the  Gospel.  The  Creed  is  not  the  Church ; 
it  fixes  and  instructs  the  Church.  The  Creed  is  not  the 
life;  any  more  than  an  eggshell  is  the  chick,  but,  break  the 
eggshell,  and  the  life  is  gone. 

From  all  of  which,  it  is  clear,  then,  that  we  hold  the 
Creed  because  the  Creed  explains  and  states  the  Bible. 
This  is  the  position  of  the  Reformed,  and  of  every  Creed 
church.  A  man  who  joins  it  accepts  the  Creed.  If  he  is  a 
minister  he  binds  himself  to  teach  and  defend  it.  If  he 
does  the  opposite  thing,  inside  a  Creed  church,  he  is  a  self- 
contradiction.  His  only  manly  and  open  course,  if  he  has 
misunderstood  the  Creed,  or  changed  his  sentiments,  is  to 
leave  the  church  which  holds  it.  He  has  no  right  to  eat 
its  bread  while  contending  against  its  principles. 


THE  DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  495 

The  position  we  take  is  that,  as  a  man  and  a  citizen,  a 
man  has  a  right  to  believe  and  say  what  he  pleases,  but 
not  as  representing  a  church  to  whose  constitution  he  has 
subscribed.    It  was  once  said  to  a  person  suspended  from 

our  ministry,  "Dr.  ■ — ,  you  are  at  liberty  to  write  down 

the  Pentateuch  and,  with  it,  the  Doctrines  of  Grace,  but 
not  as  a  minister  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  church — to  oppose 
her  doctrines  you  must  go  outside." 

The  point  thus  made  is  that  the  reason  for  the  existence 
of  a  Creed  church  is  gone  the  moment  she  gives  up  her 
Creed.  It  makes  no  difference  what  she  becomes  denomi- 
nationally after  that, — her  distinctive  testimony  as  a  wit- 
ness has  ended.    She  has  renounced  her  commission. 

God's  words  are  sound  words;  they  have  a  form.  That 
brings  us 

III.  To  the  Apostolic  injunction — "Hold  fast  the  form  of 
sound  words." 

I.  We  are  to  hold  it  because  it  has  been  proved  to  be 
safe.  No  harm  has  ever  come  by  holding  the  Doctrines  of 
Grace  as  taught  in  Calvinistic  Confessions. 

I  well  recollect  when  at  Andover,  the  distress  of  a  fel- 
low-student, an  intimate  friend.  The  Professor  had  been 
teaching  and  insisting  that  Christ  is  not  the  Eternal  Son  of 
God,  but  that  "Son"  is  an  official  or  circumstantial  title. 
"He  is  called  Son  because  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God 
with  power  by  His  resurrection  from  the  dead.  He  is  called 
Son  because  Divinely  born  of  the  Virgin,  and  because  He 
was  to  be  so  born." 

My  friend  came  rushing  into  my  room  soon  after  the  lec- 
ture and  said:  "You  know  I  am  going  along  with  Profes- 
sors Stuart  and  Park  in  this  thing.  I  am  going  to  give  up 
the  Doctrine  of  an  Eternal  Sonship." 

"Joseph,"  was  my  reply,  "the  Bible  says  God  sent  His 
Son.  He  must  have  had  a  Son  to  send  before  He  sent 
Him.  For  more  than  1800  years  the  church  has  held  and 
believed  that  Christ  is  Son  of  God  by  nature — out  of  the 
very  essence  of  the  Father — equal  to  the  Father.  That 
makes  a  Father  and  a  Son  and  that  makes  a  Trinity.  Now 
no  harm  has  ever  come  of  holding  that.  On  the  contrary, 
almost  every  heresy  ever  broached  in  the  world  has  begun 


496  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   FAITH. 

in  a  denial  of  Eternal  Sonship.  From  Arius  down,  ruin 
has  come  from  any  other  view  of  it  than  that  Christ  is  the 
Son  of  the  Father — begotten  of  the  Father — essentially — 
and  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  In  spite  of  every  teaching 
I  shall  hold  to  it." 

Three  days  my  friend  spent  alone  in  fasting,  prayer  and 
study  of  the  Scriptures.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he  came 
to  me  and  said  "I  am  with  you!  I  have  been  studying  the 
Second  Psalm,  'Thou  art  My  Son,  this  day  have  I  begotten 
Thee.'     'This  day/  means  Eternity." 

It  is  safe  to  hold  fast  the  Form  of  Sound  Words. 

But  again :  and  growing  out  of  this,  it  is  essential.  Men 
who  go  wrong,  go  wrong  as  fish  go  bad,  first,  in  the  head. 
Cain  contended  the  Doctrine  of  a  Vicarious  Sacrifice — the 
Lamb  as  a  Substitute.  Out  of  that  contention  came  enmity 
and  out  of  that  came  murder.  Men  deteriorated  in  propor- 
tion as  they  lost  their  principles.  "According  to  all  that  I 
can  understand  of  modern  liberalism,"  says  one,  "religion 
is  a  mere  matter  of  opinion  and  no  opinion  is  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  be  worth  contending  for.  The  martyrs  might 
have  saved  themselves  a  world  of  loss  and  pain  if  they  had 
been  of  this  school,  and  the  Reformers  might  have  spared 
the  world  all  their  din  about  Popery  and  Protestantism.  I 
deplore  the  spread  of  this  infidel  spirit ;  it  will  eat  as  doth  a 
canker.  Where  is  the  strength  of  a  Church  when  its  faith 
is  held  in  such  low  esteem?  Where  is  conscience?  Where 
is  common  honesty  ?  No !  No !  Let  us  be  sure  our  Lord 
Jesus  never  gave  countenance  to  the  base  born  charity 
which  teaches  that  it  is  no  injury  to  a  man's  nature  to  be- 
lieve a  lie.  Let  us  be  firm — steadfast — positive.  There  are 
certain  things  which  are  true  and  which  stay  true;  let  us 
find  them  out  and  grapple  them  as  with  hooks  of  steel.  Let 
us  buy  the  truth  at  any  price  and. sell  it  at  no  price.  "Hold 
fast  the  form  of  sound. words." 

We  are  to  hold  it  finally  because  what  is  needed  is  not  a 
new  religion,  'but  new  pozver..- 
'  God  will  not  bless  error  as  He  blesses  truth.   .    • 

God  kno.ws'  the  difference  between  truth  and  error  and 
His  eyes  are  on;  the  truth.  God-  will",  not-  bless  error  as  He 
blesses  truth,  and  let  men, pray  on-  both  sides  -as.  did-  Baal's 
priests  and  Elijah  at  CarmeL  The  Doctrines-  of  Grace  .held 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  497 

in  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  by  men  of  spiritual 
lives  are  the  mightiest  force  at  work  on  this  planet. 

It  is  a  great  thing  for  men,  when  they  kneel  down  to 
pray,  to  feel  that  they  are  praying  on  right  lines  and  for 
the  working  of  eternal  truths  which  God  will  bless. 

No  revivals  have  ever  been  known  like  those  which  have 
sprung  from  the  preaching  of  those  doctrines  which  root  in 
the  Sovereignty  of  Grace.  For  depth,  for  permanency, 
solidity  and  breadth  of  influence  there  is  nothing  like  them, 
when  accompanied  by  earnest,  heartfelt  and  believing 
prayer.  The  Spirit  of  God  delights  to  honor  these  Doc- 
trines, for  Divinity  is  in  them.  The  soul  converted  under 
them  bears  an  impression  of  genuineness  borne  by  none 
other.  The  Church  built  upon  them  is  one  against  which 
the  gates  of  hell  itself  cannot  prevail. 

What  is  needed  is  not  a  new  locomotive,  but  steam  in  a 
locomotive  where  the  fire  has  died  low.*  What  is  needed 
is  not  a  new  track,  but  time  on  the  old  one — that  trains 
should  run  as  if  for  life — at  lightning  speed. 

It  is  not  a  new  mould,  but  liquid  white-hot  iron  to  be 
poured  into  a  mould  where  iron  now  lies  cold  and  rusty. 
May  God  awaken  us  to  the  necessity  of  calling  down  His 
power  in  connection  with  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel. 
Then  shall  we  behold  the  marvellous  increase  and  vigor  of 
the  Church.  Then  shall  conversions  be  multiplied,  affec- 
tions kindled  and  the  kingdom  of  God  brought  in. 

*The  reports  of  conversions,  for  the  last  year,  in  what  may  be 
called  the  Puritan  denominations,  diminish  precisely  in  the  ratio  in 
which  they  have  relaxed  or  thrown  suspicion  on  their  Creeds. 


498  THE   DOCTRINES   OF    GRACE. 


SHADOW-SIDE  OF  SOLOMON. 

Neh.  xiii  :26. 

"Did  not  Solomon,  King  of  Israel,  sin  by  these  things?  Yet 
among  many  nations  was  there  no  king  like  him,  who  was  beloved 
of  his  God." 

In  Solomon,  the  as  yet  undivided  monarchy  of  Israel, 
reached  its  zenith  of  splendor.  Solomon  reaped  the  full 
harvest  of  glory,  for  which  David  had  toiled  and  suffered — 
for,  while  Solomon  was  almost  in  the  position  of  a  modern 
engineer  who  puts  together  a  steamer  which  has  been  al- 
ready built  in  sections,  he  more  than  supplements  David  in 
that  he  domes  in  and  crowns  with  dazzling  lustre  the  fabric 
of  the  Theocratic  Kingdom  which,  in  him,  reaches  its 
acme. 

In  Solomon,  too,  the  family  of  David  enters  on  its  decline, 
and  thus  he  presents  himself  to  us,  in  the  Bible,  under  a  two- 
fold aspect.  He  is  an  embodiment  of  glory  and  of  greatness, 
so  conspicuous  as  to  be  a  type  of  Christ  the  King  of  glory ; 
and  he  is  also  a  zvaming  of  the  most  serious — one  might 
say  of  the  most  tragical — description,  pointing  out  the  dan- 
gers which  may  surround  the  loftiest  virtue  and  grandeur 
this  side  of  the  grave.  Let  us  then  resume  his  record  in 
the  endeavor,  prayerfully  to  profit  by  its  spiritual  lessons. 

Regard,  I  pray  you,  three  points : 

I.  Solomon  at  his  best. 
II.  Solomon  in  his  fall — its  causes. 
III.  Solomon  restored. 
and 

I.  We  view  King  Solomon  at  his  best — at  the  summit  of 
his  wisdom — of  his  success  and  of  his  fame. 

Wisdom  is,  every  way,  the  principal  thing.  In  the  East, 
it  has  always  made  a  profound  impression.  Wise  men  have, 
there,  been  honored  with  a  peculiar  veneration.    They  have 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  499 

held  a  place  in  men's  minds  second  only  to  the  Divine. 
Egypt,  Assyria,  Babylonia  had  been  noted  for  their  Magi — 
their  wise  men  acquainted  with  Science,  and  now,  in  Pales- 
tine, arises  one  who  immeasurably  surpasses  them  all — one 
of  that  class  of  men  of  wide  and  accurate  observation  who 
can  communicate  knowledge  upon  almost  any  subject  even 
to  experts. 

We  read  that  "God  gave  Solomon  understanding  exceed- 
ing much,  for  he  was  wiser  than  all  men." 

This  does  not  imply  that  Solomon  did  not  need  to  study — 
to  exercise  the  faculties  and  powers,  to  stir  up  the  gift 
with  which  God  had  endowed  him.  Then  as  now  there  was 
no  royal  road  to  learning,  and  there  never  can  be.  Genius 
has  been  defined  to  be  the  capacity  for  hard  zvork.  Solomon 
made  good  use  of  his  eyes.  What  other  men  passed  by,  he 
jotted  down.  The  midnight  hour  found  his  lamp  burning, 
and  the  early  dawn  overtook  him  botanizing  in  his  gardens, 
or  out  with  his  geological  hammer  on  the  slopes  of  Mt. 
Lebanon.  Solomon,  quickened  to  exertion  by  the  promised 
illumination  of  God,  became  a  tireless  student  of  men  and 
of  nature,  and  ere  long  was  known  as  the  profoundest  phil- 
osopher and  wisest  counsellor  on  earth. 

v   So  much  for  Solomon's  wisdom  ;  consider  now  his  success. 

His  noblest  efforts  he  devoted  to  the  erection  of  the  Tem- 
ple— that  splendid  Creed  in  Stone  whose  gilded  spires  re- 
flected the  light  of  religion  to  the  farthest  coast-lines  of  the 
continents. 

Subordinate  to  this,  he  adorned  Jerusalem  and  filled  the 
land  with  monuments  of  his  prosperity  and  wealth.  To  in- 
crease his  revenue,  he  inaugurated  the  schemes  of  a  magnifi- 
cent commerce.  Building  Tadmor  or  Palmyra  as  a  central 
depot  in  the  wilderness,  he  monopolized  the  carrying  trade 
between  Spain  and  the  Himalaya's,  one  way,  and  between 
Ararat  and  Abyssinia,  the  other. 

In  all  these  things,  Solomon  planned  and  labored  as  if 
success  depended  solely  on  himself — as  if  there  were  no 
promised  blessing,  for  well  he  knew  the  blessing  would  be 
neutralized  without  activities  along  which  it  could  flow. 

With  this  success  of  Solomon  was  blended  "largeness  of 
heart."    After  all,  what  makes  the  man  is  not  his  intellect. 


500  THE   DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE. 

Every  day  brings  us  new  confirmation  of  this.  The  world, 
while  it  seems  to  worship,  actually  despises  mere  brain,  and, 
because  it  is  felt  that  a  man  with  intellect  alone  is  a  mon- 
strosity— as  much  so  as  a  hydrocephalus.  The  devil,  for  ex- 
ample, is  an  illustration.  Like  a  serpent,  he  is  all  head,  the 
rest  of  him  wriggles  through — a  shrunken,  attenuated  ap- 
pendage.   Moral  being  in  him  is  a  moral  mutilation. 

Not  so  was  it  with  Solomon.  His  heart  was  larger  than 
his  brain  and  was  the  seat  and  spring  of  all  his  knowledge. 
It  was  because  he  felt  himself  a  child  that  he  asked  for 
wisdom,  and  it  was  because  he  continued  to  feel  his  de- 
pendence that,  when  wisdom  came,  he  cherished  and  used 
it.  A  large  heart  is  always  a  learning  heart.  It  is  the  heart 
that  sees — that  prompts — that  ponders — that  investigates. 
We  say  that  love  is  blind,  but  nothing  is  so  quick  to  see  as 
love — nothing  so  instructive  to  prompt — nothing  so  persist- 
ent in  resolve — nothing  so  patient  in  achievement. 

Solomon's  success  led  to  the  Fame  of  Solomon.  "Men 
will  praise  thee  when  thou  doest  well  to  thyself,"  but  Solo- 
mon had  a  higher  source  of  fame.  "Them  that  honor  Me,  / 
will  honor."   Solomon  gave  all  the  glory  to  God. 

That  was  his  glory  and  its  Palladium.  "Upon  all,"  it  is 
said,  "the  glory  shall  be  a  defence/'  Solomon's  name  was 
lost  in  the  name  above  every  name.  He  acted  on  the  ad- 
monition "Give  glory  to  God  before  He  cause  darkness, 
and  before  your  feet  stumble  upon  the  dark  mountains!" 

Solomon  made  God  so  preeminent  that  all  his  fame  in 
all  lands  was  concerning  the  Name  of  the  Lord" — the  report 
was  but  a  publication  of  what  God  had  done  for  Solomon. 
It  was  this  which  drew  the  Queen  of  Sheba  to  him — that 
bright  particular  star  which  marks  the  climax  of  his  influ- 
ence— and  resulted  in  her  conversion.  For  that  she  was 
truly  converted,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  room  for  ques- 
tion. 

One  thing :  She  came  impelled  with  desire  concerning  the 
Name  of  the  Lord. 

Another  thing:  She  recognized  the  Lord.  She  empha- 
sizes the  fact  that,  back  of  Solomon,  there  is  One  who  has 
made  the  king  what  he  is,  and  that,  not  for  his  own  sake, 
but,  in  the  line  of  higher  purpose,  for  the  good  of  His 
people  and  of  the  world.    "Blessed  be  the  Lord  thy  God," 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  501 

says  she,  "which  delighted  in  thee  to  set  thee  on  the  throne 
of  Israel."  She  acknowledges  and  bows  down  to  the  Sov- 
ereignty of  God  which  is  the  test  fact  in  religion.  She  sees 
Solomon,  herself  and  all  things  at  the  disposal  of  a  Divine 
Predestination. 

But  more  than  this :  She  yields  to  God  and  speaks  of  Him 
not  only  as  Solomon's  God  but  as  her  ozvn.  "Because  the 
Lord,"  she  adds,  "LOVED  Israel,  forever!"  She  sees  love 
in  it  all.  She  sees  happiness  in  it  all.  "Happy  are  thy  men — 
happy  thy  servants !"  No  envy  sullies  the  loveliness  of  her 
charming  humility.  God  is  Solomon's  God,  yet  He  is  her 
God.  She  also  claims  Him — adoring  Him  as  Jehovah  and 
calling  Him  by  this  Covenant-Name. 

So  Solomon  becomes  the  culmination,  in  his  person,  of 
the  sublimest  greatness  which  the  world  has  ever  known. 
Of  greatness  enhaloed  by  Glory  and  radiating  out,  in  that 
Glory,  the  Name  of  the  Lord.  Not  only  was  Solomon,  from 
his  throne  of  ivory  and  gold,  the  Teacher  of  Israel,  but  he 
was  the  Prophet  of  nations — the  Evangelizer  of  Sheba  and 
of  the  Kingdoms  of  the  World. 

We  come  now, 

II ;  to  his  Fall — its  Causes. 

A  picture  exhibited  in  Paris,  of  a  frightfully  wan,  emaci- 
ated girl  with  hollow  eyes,  and  livid  cheeks  and  touching 
look  of  an  appealing  hopelessness,  has  attached  to  it  this 
melancholy  story.  It  was  the  portrait  of  the  artist's  sweet- 
heart. When  he  began  to  paint  it,  she  was  beautiful  and  in 
the  glow  of  health ;  but,  while  the  work  progressed,  she 
fell  sick  with  consumption  and  slowly  wasted  away.  As 
the  deadly  disease  changed  her  looks,  the  artist  touched 
and  rc-touched  her  likeness,  until  it  came  to  be  the  ghastly 
presentation  of  a  living  corpse. 

Something  like  this  is  the  transition  in  Solomon.  He  did 
not  fall  at  once,  but  step  by  step,  and  inch  by  inch  and  hair's 
breadth  by  hair's  breadth. 

No  character  goes  down  at  once — nor  without  checks  and 
warnings.  The  Arabian  legend  is  right  which  says  that  in 
the  staff  on  which  Solomon  leaned  was  a  worm  secretly 
gnawing  at  its  centre.   At  last  the  staff  was  hollowed  away 


502  THE   DOCTRINES    OF   GRACE. 

into  dust,  and  Solomon,  who  was  standing  in  front  of  the 
Temple,  fell  flat  on  his  face. 

Many  men  die  of  dry-rot.  Ruin  is  a  long  time  coming  but 
when  they  go,  they  go  suddenly. 

There  are  constitutions  which  wear  well  until  some  cer- 
tain sickness  or  a  piercing  sorrow  breaks  them  down,  and 
then  they  descend  life's  ladder  with  a  drop,  and  yet  there 
has  been  a  secret  spot  of  weakness  at  the  centre  long  before. 
"The  only  explanation  of  the  fall  of  some  Christians,"  says 
one,  "is  that  they  were  overcome  by  the  accumulated  force 
of  the  sins  of  their  youth."  No  man  knows  what  is  in  him 
until  he  is  tried,  therefore  it  becomes  every  man  to  watch 
well  his  tendencies  and  hold  himself  closely  in  hand — 
especially,  to  guard  against  every  hereditary  taint.  The  sins 
of  the  grandfather  may  break  forth  in  the  third  generation. 
Solomon  reproduces  Bath-Sheba's  lightness.  It  is  not  cer- 
tain that  his  mother  was  of  Hebrew  lineage.  He  may  have 
had  from  her  a  Hittite  strain. 

One  cause  of  Solomon's  decline  was,  no  doubt,  his  ceas- 
ing to  work.  Idleness  is  so  nearly  allied  to  original  sin  that 
Satan  always  finds  in  it  his  best  occasion  and  advantage. 

A  busy  man  is  rarely  tempted.  His  thoughts  are  pre- 
occupied— his  life  is  full — he  has  no  time  to  waste  in 
dreams,  dissipation  and  wantonness. 

Solomon  had  come  to  a  stage  where  he  had  nothing  to  do 
but  sit  still  and  sigh  for  more  worlds  to  evangelize,  or  more 
buildings  to  erect.  Then  the  devil,  who  had  been  biding  his 
time,  introduced  himself  as  a  whiter  away  of  ennui  and 
found  mischief  enough  for  the  idle  hands  of  King  Solomon. 

He  found  mischief,  and  what  was  more  and  worse,  he 
found  King  Solomon's  mind  in  a  fit  state  to  entertain  mis- 
chief— for  Solomon,  like  Lucifer  of  old,  high,  lifted  up  and 
blinded  with  excess  of  light — filled  with  self-conceit — was 
ready  to  plunge  to  destruction. 

It  is  easy,  after  a  while,  to  look  on  God's  gift,  which  came 
to  us  first  as  a  miracle,  now  as  something  inherent.  A  man 
sees  the  interposition  of  God  in  his  life.  He  acknowledges 
the  blessing  as  supernatural,  and  not  the  less  so  because  it 
calls  for  toil  and  improvement  on  his  part.  He  works  from 
the  point  of  that  interposition,  knowing  it  to  be  an  interpo- 
sition, until  time  dims  to  him  the  event,  the  circumstances, 


THE    DOCTRINES    OE    GRACE.  503 

the  terror  of  the  crisis  and,  insensibly,  he  finds  himself 
ascribing  to  his  own  sagacity,  the  deliverance  and  the  suc- 
cess which  have  crowned  him.  There  comes  a  moment 
when,  if  he  be  not  careful,  the  faculty,  the  quickness  of  in- 
tellect in  him  becomes  confounded  with  shrewdness — with 
cunning — when  he  half  suspects  that  the  light  by  which  he 
sees  is  his  own.  Then  appears  the  Tempter.  He  may  come 
in  the  form  of  an  Egyptian  Princess  or  in  any  other,  but, 
however  he  comes,  it  will  be  an  appeal  to  the  senses — it  will 
have  as  its  end  relaxation,  an  idol — in  place  of  the  Name 
of  the  Lord.  The  secret  lust  of  the  heart,  what  the  inner 
man  has  been  all  along,  will  out  and  all  the  gold  and  all  the 
glory  will  join  to  strengthen  and  deepen  its  falseness.  The 
glorious  power  of  judgment  which  enabled  one,  who  "knew 
not  how  to  go  out  or  to  come  in,"  to  look  into  and  to  re- 
solve the  hardest  cases,  will  only  spend  its  keenness  in  in- 
venting arguments,  apologies  and  subterfuges  for  its  shame, 
and,  like  a  drunken  man,  his  crown  tumbling  in  front  of 
him  into  the  mire — the  "King  among  his  fellows,"  staggers 
and  falls  prone,  and  Ichabod  is  written  as  his  epitaph. 

Solomon  was  led  away  by  his  senses.  Beauty  appealed 
to  him,  and  appetite  appealed  to  him.  Man  is  made  up  of 
two  great  impulses — Passion  and  Love.  The  one  fixes  on 
the  possession  of  its  object — the  other  on  the  good  of  the 
object.  The  one  is  essential  selfishness,  becoming  cruel, 
treacherous,  Satanic.  The  other  is  abnegation  in  its  high- 
est form.  The  one  revels  in  libertinage,  the  other  finds  its 
realization  in  marriage. 

The  Seventh  Commandment  is  a  bulwark  raised  to  pro- 
tect the  relations  between  the  sexes  than  which  nothing  can 
be  more  sacred. 

"God  made  man,  male  and  female."  Such,  we  see,  was 
the  Divine  wisdom  in  the  beginning.  The  portion  of  His 
own  glory  communicated  to  the  new  being  just  created  He 
divided  into  two  parts,  giving  to  the  man  strength,  wis- 
dom and  courage  and  to  the  woman  beauty,  instinct  and 
devotion. 

Woman,  then,  is  not  imperfect  man  but  the  half  of  him 
and  the  two  halves  make  one  pure,  crystal  sphere,  there  is 
no  room  for  fractions. 

This  division  of  human  nature  into  two  halves   is  the 


504  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

singular  ordinance  on  which  the  creator  has  suspended  the 
happiness,  the  progress  and  even  the  very  existence  of  our 
race,  for  out  of  their  meeting  and  blending,  arises  love 
with  its  refining  influences,  including  marriage  with  the 
mysteries  and  charities  of  home,  fatherhood,  motherhood, 
childhood,  sisterhood,  brotherhood, — what  names  more 
sacred  can  the  lips  utter? 

The  ruin  of  all  this  is  polygamy.  Solomon  has  1,000 
wives — then,  such  is  the  equation  of  the  sexes, — 999  men 
must  go  homeless. 

Polygamy  makes  a  man  untrue  to  one  woman.  From 
the  nature  of  the  case,  the  polygamist  cannot  be  perfectly, 
undividedly  true  in  one  direction.  Then,  if  not  in  one,  and 
that  the  highest,  in  none  lower  surely.  The  man  who  has 
it  in  him  to  be  false  to  a  woman,  has  it  in  him  to  be  false 
everywhere.  He  is  unsound  at  the  core.  Then  every  appe- 
tite seizes  him.  In  the  atmosphere  of  his  shameful  harem, 
the  heart  of  Solomon  was  perverted,  his  will  weakened, 
his  moral  sense  stupefied.  His  ideal,  dragged  downward  by 
the  character  of  his  associates,  he  went  the  way  which 
destroys  everything  kingly — sinking  from  sensuousness  into 
sensualism,  and  from  sensualism  into  debauchery  and  dis- 
honorable enervation. 

Solomon  fell  by  an  unrecognized,  subtle  and  unconquered 
evil  in  his  nature.  His  was  the  experience  of  the  7th 
of  Romans  and  of  the  flesh,  against  whom  no  outward 
influences  or  barriers  are  strong.  In  Solomon's  case  we 
see  that  education  saves  no  man.  The  wiser  he  was,  the 
greater  fool  he  became. 

Solomon's  knowledge  was  comprehensive.  It  was  not 
only  secular.  He  was  a  master  of  moral  and  of  spiritual 
truth.  He  knew  the  claims  of  God.  He  knew  the  power 
of  temptation — He  knew  the  power  of  women  and  the 
power  of  wine — He  knew  the  weakness  of  the  human 
heart.  He  knew  the  consequences  yet  he  determined  to 
risk  them.  He  was  like  a  physician  who  may  perfectly 
know  the  subtle  and  deadly  effects  of  a  drug  and  yet 
continue  to  use  it. 

Solomon,  in  his  fall,  belied  himself.  He  tore  down,  in 
his  after  life,  what  he  built  up  in  the  former.  He  stood 
at  last  the  living  contradiction  to  his  earlier  professions. 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  505 

Sad  that  a  man  should  so  reverse  himself — should  so 
neutralize  his  own  record — should  so  undo,  with  one  hand, 
what  he  had  done  with  the  other. 

A  man's  fall  eclipses  all  there  was  good  of  him.  That 
is  a  solemn  thought.  A  minister  may  preach  40  years 
like  an  angel,  and  then,  by  one  flagrant  sin  or  by  one 
treason  to  truth  make  it  that  men  do  not  care  to  speak 
his  name. 

So  Solomon  is  buried  in  silence.  He  filled  a  large  space 
but  proved  unworthy  of  it  and  departed  leaving  onlv  the 
shadow  of  a  remembrance. 

"A  name  at  which  the  world  grows  pale 
To  point  a  moral,  or  adorn  a  tale!" 

III.  A  third  point  which  I  wish  to  make  this  morning — 
which,  thank  God,  throws  a  light  at  evening  on  what  else 
were  almost  too  dark  a  picture  to  contemplate — is  King 
Solomon's  late  restoration, — the  glad  assurance  that,  how- 
ever there  may  have  been  a  worm  in  the  bud — a  defect 
in  the  first  choice  in  life, — however  he  may  not  have  dis- 
tinguished, as  he  ought  to  have  done — at  the  beginning  of 
his  course — between  earthly  and  spiritual  wisdom — and 
however,  from  this  first  defect,  and  from  the  power  of 
temptations — greater  than  those  to  which  any  other  mere 
man  has  ever  been  exposed — King  Solomon  fell — yet,  that 
he  did  not  fall  utterly,  so  as  to  lose  the  mercy  of  God  and 
finally  perish. 

Over  the  fate  of  Solomon,  there  is  a  cloud  and  a  silence 
which  has  encouraged  some  of  the  Fathers,  and  others  in 
more  modern  times,  especially  of  the  Higher  Critical 
School,  to  doubt  his  end. 

The  cloud  and  the  silence  are  a  test  of  the  real  faith  of 
men.  Will  they  believe  God,  if  he  does  not  confirm  Him- 
self by  a  positive  statement?  or  will  they,  as  soon  as  silence 
comes  in  upon  any  point,  decide  against  God — and  the 
promises  01  God  and  the  experience  of  His  known  con- 
sistent proceedure? 

Orcagna,  in  his  famous  picture  in  the  Campo  Santo  at 
Pisa,  represents  King  Solomon  as  rising  out  of  his  Sepul- 
chre in  robe  and  crown,  at  the  trump  of  the  Archangel, 
uncertain  whether  he  is  to  turn  toward  the  right  hand  of 


506  THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE. 

the  Judge  or  the  left.  Dante  places  Solomon  in  Paradise. 
Chrysostom  and  all  the  Greek  fathers  and  the  Reformers 
and  Puritans  stoutly  assert  that  Solomon  was  saved. 

There  are  reasons  drawn  from  indirect  but  positive  state- 
ments, in  the  Bible,  why  we  should  be  settled,  and  with 
comfort,  in  the  conviction  that  Solomon  was  saved. 

i.  His  name  "Jedidiah"  shows  it.  "And  the  Lord  sent 
by  the  hand  of  Nathan  the  prophet  and  called  his  name 
Jedidiah — 'Beloved  of  the  Lord.'  "  Did  the  Lord  ever  call 
a  wicked  man — a  lost  man,  by  such  a  name?  Again  it 
says:  "The  Lord  loved  him."  Does  He  ever  quit  loving? 
Does  He  not  say:  "My  love  is  Eternal?"  Think  of  God 
calling  Judas,  "Jedidiah" — or  Esau  or  Cain  "the  Beloved  of 
the  Lord." 

2.  God  made  specific  promises  to  David  that  He  would 
not  take  His  mercy  from  Solomon,  even  though  he  proved 
himself  unworthy.  "He  shall  build  an  house  for  me,  and 
I  will  establish  the  throne  of  his  Kingdom  forever.  I  will 
be  his  father,  and  he  shall  be  my  son.  If  he  commit  in- 
iquity, I  will  chasten  him  with  the  rod  of  men,  and  with  the 
stripes  of  men,  but  My  mercy  shall  not  depart  from  him 
as  I  took  it  from  Saul  whom  I  put  away."  This  promise 
of  II  Sam.  xii  :i6,  is  repeated  again  at  greater  length, 
where  God  swears  to  David  in  the  89th  Psalm, — "My  cove- 
nant I  will  not  break  nor  alter  the  thing  that  is  gone  out 
of  My  lips." 

3.  A  third  reason  is,  the  Commendations  of  Solomon 
found  in  the  Bible  after  his  death.  Rehoboam  is  com- 
mended for  walking — the  first  three  years  of  his  reign — 
in  the  ways  of  David  and  Solomon.  Nehemiah,  in  the  text, 
asserts  "There  was  no  King  like  Solomon  who  was  be- 
loved of  his  God." 

4.  A  fourth  reason  is,  that  Solomon  was  an  inspired 
writer.  God  does  choose  reprobates  to  write  a  Bible. 
Three  books  of  the  Old  Testament  distinctly  claim  to  have 
been  written  by  Solomon.  They  say  so.  "The  Proverbs 
of  Solomon,"  the  words  of  Ecclesiastes,  the  son  of  David, 
King  in  Jerusalem."  "The  Song  of  Songs  which  is  Solo- 
mon's." 

The  Higher  Critics  will  have  it  that  Solomon  did  not 
write  the  Proverbs.    They  do  not  know  who  did — but,  any- 


THE   DOCTRINES   OF   GRACE.  507 

how,  not  Solomon.  St.  Paul  quotes  from  the  Proverbs — 
St.  Peter  quotes  from  the  Proverbs.  The  Bible  says  Solo- 
mon wrote  the  Proverbs,  the  Higher  Critics  say  "He  did 
not." 

As  for  the  Song — Adeney  in  the  Expositor's  Bible — one 
of  the  rankest  of  these  critics,  says :  "Who  wrote  the 
Book?  The  only  answer  that  can  be  given  is  negative" — 
i.  e.,  we  do  not  know.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  flatly  con- 
tradict the  Hebrew  Shir  Hashirim  ashcr  V  Salomo.  The 
Song  of  Songs  which  is  Solomon's. 

In  Ecclesiastes,  who  can  fail  to  discern  the  prevailing 
tone  of  sadness  which  indicates  and  emphasizes  the  contri- 
tion of   a   sinner    mournfully    returning    from  his   ways? 

Finding  everything  emptiness  "under  the  sun" — no  light, 
hope,  joy,  or  permanent  good  or  salvation,  save  from  above 
and  beyond  it — the  Preacher  reiterates  his  sad  refrain  of 
"Vanity!"  The  words  "Under  the  sun"  occur  25  times  in 
Ecclesiastes.  They  are  the  key  to  the  book.  An  equal 
number  of  times  occurs  the  word  "Vanity."  The  com- 
mentary upon  the  book  is  found  in  the  New  Testament — 
1  John  ii  :y,  "The  world  passeth  away  and  the  lust  there- 
of, but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  forever." 
Such  is  Solomon's  "conclusion  of  the  whole  matter"  (Eccl. 
xii:i5). 

Who  cannot  find  here,  as  in  David's  51st  Psalm,  a  public 
confession  and  testimony  of  Solomon's  repentance?  Be- 
sides, Solomon  in  the  Book,  says  he  wrote  it. 

5th.  A  fifth  reason  why  we  must  believe  that  Solomon 
was  saved  is  the  fact  that  our  Blessed  Lord  compares  Him- 
self to  Solomon.  Could  such  a  parallel  be  possible  on  any 
other  supposition?  Could  Christ  compare  Himself  to 
Ahab,  or  Saul,  or  Jeroboam,  or  Nebuchadnezzar?  "The 
Queen  of  Sheba,"  He  says,  "shall  rise  up  in  the  judgment 
with  this  generation  and  shall  condemn  it — for  she  came 
from  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  to  hear  the  wisdom 
of  Solomon" — and  she  did  rightly — she  acted  up  to  her 
light  in  her  day.  "And  behold  a  Greater  than  Solomon  is 
here." 

"But,  if  Solomon  was  saved,  why  are  we  not  told  so?" 
One  reason  is,  to  try  our  faith — to  see  whether  we  will 
believe  God  in  the  dark. 


5o8  THE   DOCTRINES  OF   GRACE. 

Another  reason  is  that  the  Bible  does  not  say  much 
about  deathbeds.  It  does  not  tell  us  that  Adam  was  saved — 
nor  Noah  after  his  drunkenness! — nor  Shem,  nor  Lot — 
nor  Samson,  nor  the  prophet  Gad — nor  Jonah — nor  Barna- 
bas after  his  quarrel  with  Paul.  Does  any  common  sense 
Christian  doubt  the  salvation  of  these  men? 

Another  reason,  no  doubt,  why  Solomon's  recovery  is 
left  in  silence  and  to  inference  is — lest  men  should  be  en- 
couraged, by  his  example,  to  turn  the  doctrine  of  Persever- 
ance, which  is  the  sheet-anchor  of  faith,  into  presumption. 

Once  a  saint,  a  saint  forever.  A  real  saint  can  never  fall — 
i.  e.,  fall  finally  away.  He  may  fall  into  sin,  but  not  into 
perdition.  But  who  shall  assure  any  man,  who  is  living  in 
sin,  that  he  is  a  saint?  or  that  he  ever  has  been? — that  he 
has  not  made  a  terrible  mistake?  For  a  man  may  counter- 
feit every  grace  that  ever  was,  and  men  have  done  it.  A 
man  may  pray  and  sing  and  appear  like  an  angel,  and 
deceive  himself  as  well  as  others.  Men  always  deceive  them- 
selves until  found  out.  A  wolf  may  wear  the  sheep's  skin 
so  plausibly  that  the  whole  Christian  Church  shall  be  taken 
in.    He  may  deceive  not  only  himself,  but  the  very  elect. 

No  man  indulging  sin  however,  can  ever  have  assurance. 
Solomon  did  not  have  it.  He  walked  under  a  cloud — 
Ecclesiastes  shows  that,  while  he  was  living  "under  the 
sun,"  he  had  no  light  from  above — from  "the  Sun  behind 
the  sun."  What  wonder  he  was  peevish,  melancholy,  pessi- 
mistic? There  is  but  dubious  light  in  Ecclesiastes,  until 
you  get  to  the  last  chapter.  It  is  all — (twenty-five  times 
repeated)  "under  the  sun." 

A  final  reason  why  Solomon's  eternity  is  left  in  silence  is, 
that  parents  may  learn  to  trust  their  consecrated  children 
in  the  hands  of  God.  David  prayed  for  Solomon.  He  took 
pains  to  have  the  Seal  of  God's  Covenant,  circumcision, — 
which  was  the  same  as  Baptism  in  the  Old  Testament, — 
applied  to  him,  but  he  was  obliged  to  leave  Solomon  be- 
hind him,  in  the  hour  of  death,  and  in  the  hands  of  God. 
Whatever  Solomon  might  do,  however,  or  become,  God 
would  take  care  of  him.  To  that  David  clung — "Although 
my  house  be  not  so,  with  God,"  he  says — "not  what  I  wish 
it  were — not  what  it  ought  to  be,  yet  hath  He  made  with  me 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  GRACE.  509 

an  Everlasting  Covenant,  ordered  in  all  things  and  sure — 
and  this  is  all  my  salvation  and  all  my  desire."  The  final 
breath  of  David  was  breathed  out  in  the  line  and  in  the 
spirit  of  the  hymn — 

Dear   Saviour,   if  these   lambs   should   stray, 
From  Thy  secure  enclosure's  bound 

And,  lured  by  worldly  joys  away 

Among  the  thoughtless  crowd  be  found: 

Remember  still,  that  they  are  Thine, 

That  Thy  dear  Sacred  Name  they  bear; 

Think  that  the  Seal  of  love  Divine, 
The  sign  of    Covenant  Grace  they  wear. 

In  all  their  erring  sinful  years, 

Oh  let  them  not  forgotten  be; 
Remember  all  the  prayers  and  tears 

That  made  them  consecrate  to  Thee. 

And  when  these  lips  no  more  can  pray, 
These  eyes  can  weep  for  them  no  more ; 

Turn  thou  their  feet  from  folly's  way 
The  wanderers  to  Thy  fold  restore." 

Perhaps,  perhaps — think  of  this,  O  baptized  child  of  the 
Covenant — perhaps  the  fact  that,  in  his  infancy,  he  had 
been  consecrated  to  God  by  pious  parents,  was  the  great 
thought  that  weighed  with  Solomon  in  turning  him  back 
to   his    Saviour. 


